All Things For Good by Thomas Watson

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All Things for Good

by Thomas Watson


Contents

Introduction

Chapter One
THE BEST THINGS WORK FOR GOOD TO THE GODLY
(1) The attributes of God.
(2) The promises of God.
(3) The mercies of God.
(4) The graces of the Spirit.
(5) The angels of God.
(6) The communion of Saints.
(7) The intercession of Christ.
(8) The prayers of Saints.

Chapter Two
THE WORST THINGS WORK FOR GOOD TO THE GODLY
(1) The evil of affliction.
(2) The evil of temptation.
(3) The evil of desertion.
(4) The evil of sin.

Chapter Three
WHY ALL THINGS WORK FOR GOOD TO THE GODLY
(1) The reason why all things work for good.
(2) Inferences from this proposition.

Chapter Four
OF LOVE TO GOD
(1) The nature of love.
(2) The ground of love.
(3) The kinds of love.
(4) The properties of love.
(5) The degrees of love.
      USE. A reproof to those who do not love God.

Chapter Five
THE TESTS OF LOVE TO GOD

Chapter Six
AN EXHORTATION TO LOVE GOD
(1) An exhortation to become lovers of God - twenty motives for loving God.
(2) An exhortation to preserve your love to God.
(3) An exhortation to increase your love to God.

Chapter Seven
EFFECTUAL CALLING
(1) A distinction about calling.
(2) Our condition before we are called.
(3) The means of our effectual calling.
(4) The method God uses in calling sinners.
(5) The properties of this effectual calling.
(6) The end of effectual calling.
      USE. An exhortation to make your calling sure.

Chapter Eight
EXHORTATIONS TO THEM WHO ARE CALLED
(1) Admire God’s free grace.
(2) Pity those who are not yet called.
(3) Walk worthy of your high calling.

Chapter Nine
CONCERNING GOD’S PURPOSE
(1) God’s purpose is the cause of salvation.
(2) God’s purpose is the ground of salvation.

Electronic Version Notes

EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE
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CHRISTIAN READER,
There are two things, which I have always looked upon as difficult. The one is, to make the wicked sad; the other is, to make the godly joyful. Dejection in the godly arises from a double spring: either because their inward comforts are darkened, or their outward comforts are disturbed. To cure both these troubles, I have put forth this ensuing piece, hoping, by the blessing of God, that it will buoy up their desponding hearts, and make them look with a more pleasant aspect. I would prescribe them to take, now and then, a little of this Cordial: ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD TO THEM THAT LOVE GOD. To know that nothing hurts the godly, is a matter of comfort; but to be assured that ALL things which fall out shall cooperate for their good, that their crosses shall be turned into blessings, that showers of affliction water the withering root of their grace and make it flourish more; this may fill their hearts with joy till they run over.
All Things For Good


We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.


ROMANS, 8:28.

INTRODUCTION
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If the whole Scripture be the feast of the soul, as Ambrose said, then Romans 8 may be a dish at that feast, and with its sweet variety may very much refresh and animate the hearts of Gods people. In the preceding verses the apostle had been wading through the great doctrines of justification and adoption, mysteries so arduous and profound, that without the help and conduct of the Spirit, he might soon have waded beyond his depth. In this verse the apostle touches upon that pleasant string of consolation, ‘WE KNOW THAT ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD TO THEM THAT LOVE GOD.’ Not a word but is weighty; therefore I shall gather up every filing of this gold, that nothing be lost.
In the text there are three general branches:
First, a glorious privilege. All things work for good.
Second, the persons interested in this privilege. They are doubly specified. They are lovers of God, they are called.
Third, the origin and spring of this effectual calling, set down in these words, ‘according to his purpose.
First, the glorious privilege. Here are two things to be considered. 1. The certainty of the privilege - ‘We know.’ 2. The excellency of the privilege - ‘All things work together for good.

1. The certainly of the privilege:
We know.’ It is not a matter wavering or doubtful. The apostle does not say, We hope, or conjecture, but it is like an article in our creed, We KNOW that all things work for good. Hence observe that the truths of the gospel are evident and infallible.
A Christian may come not merely to a vague opinion, but to a certainty of what he holds. As axioms and aphorisms are evident to reason, so the truths of religion are evident to faith. ‘We know,’ says the apostle. Though a Christian has not a perfect knowledge of the mysteries of the gospel, yet he has a certain knowledge. ‘We see through a glass darkly(1 Corinthians 13:12), therefore we have not perfection of knowledge; but ‘we behold with open face(2 Corinthians 3:18), therefore we have certainty. The Spirit of God imprints heavenly truths upon the heart, as with the point of a diamond. A Christian may know infallibly that there is an evil in sin, and a beauty in holiness. He may know that he is in the state of grace. ‘We know that we have passed from death to life(1 John 3:14).
He may know that he shall go to heaven. ‘We know that if our earthly tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens(2 Corinthians 5:1). The Lord does not leave His people at uncertainties in matters of salvation. The apostle says, We know. We have arrived at a holy confidence. We have both the Spirit of God, and our own experience, setting seal to it.
Let us then not rest in skepticism or doubts, but labour to come to a certainty in the things of religion. As that martyr-woman said, ‘I cannot dispute for Christ, but I can burn for Christ.’ God knows whether we may be called forth to be witnesses to His truth; therefore it concerns us to be well grounded and confirmed in it. If we are doubting Christians, we shall be wavering Christians. Whence is apostasy, but from incredulity? Men first question the truth, and then fall from the truth. Oh, beg the Spirit of God, not only to anoint you, but to seal you (2 Corinthians 1:22).

2. The excellency of the privilege,
All things work together for good.
This is as Jacob’s staff in the hand of faith, with which we may walk cheerfully to the mount of God. What will satisfy or make us content, if this will not? All things work together for good. This expression ‘work together’ refers to medicine. Several poisonous ingredients put together, being tempered by the skill of the apothecary, make a sovereign medicine, and work together for the good of the patient. So all God’s providences being divinely tempered and sanctified, work together for the best to the saints. He who loves God and is called according to His purpose, may rest assured that every thing in the world shall be for his good. This is a Christian’s cordial, which may warm him - make him like Jonathan who, when he had tasted the honey at the end of the rod, ‘his eyes were enlightened(1 Samuel 14:27). Why should a Christian destroy himself? Why should he kill himself with care, when all things shall sweetly concur, yea, conspire for his good? The result of the text is this. ALL THE VARIOUS DEALINGS OF GOD WITH HIS CHILDREN DO BY A SPECIAL PROVIDENCE TURN TO THEIR GOOD.All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant(Psalm 25:10). If every path has mercy in it, then it works for good.


Chapter One

THE BEST THINGS WORK FOR GOOD TO THE GODLY
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We shall consider, first, what things work for good to the godly; and here we shall show that both the best things and the worst things work for their good. We begin with the best things.

1. God’s attributes work for good to the godly.
(1) God’s power works for good. It is a glorious power (Colossians 1:11), and it is engaged for the good of the elect.
God’s power works for good, in supporting us in trouble. ‘Underneath are the everlasting arms(Deuteronomy 33:27). What upheld Daniel in the lion’s den? Jonah in the whale’s belly? The three Hebrews in the furnace? Only the power of God. Is it not strange to see a bruised reed grow and flourish? How is a weak Christian able, not only to endure affliction, but to rejoice in it? He is upheld by the arms of the Almighty. ‘My strength is made perfect in weakness(2 Corinthians 12:9).
The power of God works for us by supplying our wants. God creates comforts when means fail. He that brought food to the prophet Elijah by ravens, will bring sustenance to His people. God can preserve the ‘oil in the cruse(1 Kings 17:14). The Lord made the sun on Ahaz’s dial go ten degrees backward: so when our outward comforts are declining, and the sun is almost setting, God often causes a revival, and brings the sun many degrees backward.
The power of God subdues our corruptions. ‘He will subdue our iniquities(Micah 7:19). Is your sin strong? God is powerful, He will break the head of this leviathan. Is your heart hard? God will dissolve that stone in Christ’s blood. ‘The Almighty maketh my heart soft(Job 23:16). When we say as Jehoshaphat, ‘We have no might against this great army’, the Lord goes up with us, and helps us to fight our battles. He strikes off the heads of those goliath-lusts which are too strong for us.
The power of God conquers our enemies. He stains the pride, and breaks the confidence of adversaries. ‘Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron(Psalm 2:9). There is rage in the enemy, malice in the devil, but power in God. How easily can He rout all the forces of the wicked! ‘It is nothing for thee, LORD, to help(2 Chronicles 14:11). God’s power is on the side of His church. ‘Happy art thou, O Israel, O people saved by the LORD, who is the shield of thy help, and the sword of thy excellency(Deuteronomy 33:29).
(2) The wisdom of God works for good. God’s wisdom is our oracle to instruct us. As He is the mighty God, so also the Counsellor (Isaiah 9:6). We are oftentimes in the dark, and, in matters intricate and doubtful know not which way to take; here God comes in with light. ‘I will guide thee with mine eye(Psalm 32:8). ‘Eye,’ there, is put for God’s wisdom. Why is it the saints can see further than the most quick-sighted politicians? They foresee the evil, and hide themselves; they see Satan’s sophisms. God’s wisdom is the pillar of fire to go before, and guide them.
(3) The goodness of God works for good to the godly. God’s goodness is a means to make us good. ‘The goodness of God leadeth to repentance(Romans2 2:4). The goodness of God is a spiritual sunbeam to melt the heart into tears. Oh, says the soul, has God been so good to me? Has He reprieved me so long from hell, and shall I grieve His Spirit any more? Shall I sin against goodness?
The goodness of God works for good, as it ushers in all blessings. The favours we receive, are the silver streams which flow from the fountain of God’s goodness. This divine attribute of goodness brings in two sorts of blessings. Common blessings: all partake of these, the bad as well as the good; this sweet dew falls upon the thistle as well as the rose. Crowning blessings: these only the godly partake of. ‘Who crowneth us with loving-kindness(Psalm 103:4). Thus the blessed attributes of God work for good to the saints.

2. The promises of God work for good to the godly.
The promises are notes of God’s hand; is it not good to have security? The promises are the milk of the gospel; and is not the milk for the good of the infant? They are called ‘precious promises(2 Peter 1:4). They are as cordials to a soul that is ready to faint. The promises are full of virtue.
Are we under the guilt of sin? There is a promise, ‘The LORD merciful and gracious(Exodus 34:6), where God as it were puts on His glorious embroidery, and holds out the golden sceptre, to encourage poor trembling sinners to come to Him. ‘The LORD, merciful.’ God is more willing to pardon than to punish. Mercy does more multiply in Him than sin in us. Mercy is His nature. The bee naturally gives honey; it stings only when it is provoked. ‘But,’ says the guilty sinner, ‘I cannot deserve mercy.’ Yet He is gracious: He shows mercy, not because we deserve mercy, but because He delights in mercy. But what is that to me? Perhaps my name is not in the pardon. ‘He keeps mercy for thousands’; the exchequer of mercy is not exhausted. God has treasures lying by, and why should not you come in for a child’s part?
Are we under the defilement of sin? There is a promise working for good. ‘I will heal their backslidings(Hosea 14:4). God will not only bestow mercy, but grace. And He has made a promise of sending His Spirit (Isaiah 44:3), which for its sanctifying nature, is in Scripture compared sometimes to water, which cleanses the vessel; sometimes to the fan, which winnows corn, and purifies the air; sometimes to fire, which refines metals. Thus the Spirit of God shall cleanse and consecrate the soul, making it partake of the divine nature.
Are we in great trouble? There is a promise that works for our good, ‘I will be with him in trouble(Psalm 91:15). God does not bring His people into troubles, and leave them there. He will stand by them; He will hold their heads and hearts when they are fainting. And there is another promise, ‘He is their strength in the time of trouble(Psalm 37:39). ‘Oh,’ says the soul, ‘I shall faint in the day of trial.’ But God will be the strength of our hearts; He will join His forces with us. Either He will make His hand lighter, or our faith stronger.
Do we fear outward wants? There is a promise. ‘They that seek the LORD shall not want [lack] any good thing(Psalm 34:10). If it is good for us, we shall have it; if it is not good for us, then the withholding of it is good. ‘I will bless thy bread and thy water(Exodus 23:25). This blessing falls as the honey dew upon the leaf; it sweetens that little we possess. Let me want the venison, so I may have the blessing. But I fear I shall not get a livelihood? Peruse that Scripture, ‘I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread(Psalm 37:25). How must we understand this? David speaks it as his own observation; he never beheld such an eclipse, he never saw a godly man brought so low that he had not a bit of bread to put in his mouth. David never saw the righteous and their seed lacking. Though the Lord might try godly parents a while by want, yet not their seed too; the seed of the godly shall be provided for. David never saw the righteous begging bread, and forsaken. Though he might be reduced to great straits, yet not forsaken; still he is an heir of heaven, and God loves him.
Question. How do the promises work for good?
Answer. They are food for faith; and that which strengthens faith works for good. The promises are the milk of faith; faith sucks nourishment from them, as the child from the breast. ‘Jacob feared exceedingly(Genesis 32:7). His spirits were ready to faint; now he goes to the promise, ‘LORD, thou hast said thou wilt do me good(Genesis 32:12). This promise was his food. He got so much strength from this promise, that he was able to wrestle with the Lord all night in prayer, and would not let Him go till He had blessed him.
The promises also are springs of joy. There is more in the promises to comfort than in the world to perplex. Ursin was comforted by that promise: ‘No man shall pluck them out of my Father’s hand(John 10:29). The promises are cordials in a fainting- fit. ‘Unless thy word had been my delights, I had perished in my affliction(Psalm 119:92). The promises are as cork to the net, to bear up the heart from sinking in the deep waters of distress.

3. The mercies of God work for good to the godly.
The mercies of God humble us. ‘Then went king David, and sat before the LORD, and said, Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my father’s house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?(2 Samuel 7:18). LORD, why is such honour conferred upon me, that I should be king? That I who followed the sheep, should go in and out before Thy people? So says a gracious heart, ‘Lord, what am I, that it should be better with me than others? That I should drink of the fruit of the vine, when others drink, not only a cup of wormwood, but a cup of blood (or suffering to death). What am I, that I should have those mercies which others want, who are better than I? Lord, why is it, that notwithstanding all my unworthiness, a fresh tide of mercy comes in every day?’ The mercies of God make a sinner proud, but a saint humble.
The mercies of God have a melting influence upon the soul; they dissolve it in love to God. God’s judgments make us fear Him, His mercies make us love Him. How was Saul wrought upon by kindness! David had him at the advantage, and might have cut off, not only the skirt of his robe, but his head; yet he spares his life. This kindness melted Saul’s heart. ‘Is this thy voice, my son David? and Saul lifted up his voice, and wept(1 Samuel 24:16). Such a melting influence has God’s mercy; it makes the eyes drop with tears of love.
The mercies of God make the heart fruitful. When you lay out more cost upon a field, it bears a better crop. A gracious soul honours the Lord with his substance. He does not do with his mercies, as Israel with their jewels and ear rings, make a golden calf; but, as Solomon did with the money thrown into the treasury, build a temple for the Lord. The golden showers of mercy cause fertility.
The mercies of God make the heart thankful. ‘What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation(Psalm 116:12, 13). David alludes to the people of Israel, who at their peace offerings used to take a cup in their hands, and give thanks to God for deliverances. Every mercy is an alms of free grace; and this enlarges the soul in gratitude. A good Christian is not a grave to bury God’s mercies, but a temple to sing His praises. If every bird in its kind, as Ambrose says, chirps forth thankfulness to its Maker, much more will an ingenuous Christian, whose life is enriched and perfumed with mercy.
The mercies of God quicken. As they are loadstones to love, so they are whetstones to obedience. ‘I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living(Psalm 116:9). He that takes a review of his blessings, looks upon himself as a person engaged for God. He argues from the sweetness of mercy to the swiftness of duty. He spends and is spent for Christ; he dedicates himself to God. Among the Romans, when one had redeemed another, he was afterwards to serve him. A soul encompassed with mercy is zealously active in God’s service.
The mercies of God work compassion to others. A Christian is a temporal saviour. He feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, and visits the widow and orphan in their distress; among them he sows the golden seeds of his charity. ‘A good man sheweth favour, and lendeth(Psalm 112:5). Charity drops from him freely, as myrrh from the tree. Thus to the godly, the mercies of God work for good; they are wings to lift them up to heaven.
Spiritual mercies also work for good.
The word preached works for good. It is a savour of life, it is a soul transforming word, it assimilates the heart into Christ’s likeness; it produces assurance. ‘Our gospel came to you not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance(1 Thessalonians 1:5). It is the chariot of salvation.
Prayer works for good. Prayer is the bellows of the affection; it blows up holy desires and ardours of soul. Prayer has power with God. ‘Command ye me(Isaiah 45:11). It is a key that unlocks the treasury of God’s mercy. Prayer keeps the heart open to God, and shut to sin; it assuages the intemperate hearts and swellings of lust. It was Luther’s counsel to a friend, when he perceived a temptation begin to arise, to betake himself to prayer. Prayer is the Christian’s gun, which he discharges against his enemies. Prayer is the sovereign medicine of the soul. Prayer sanctifies every mercy (1 Timothy 4:5). It is the dispeller of sorrow: by venting the grief it eases the heart. When Hannah had prayed, ‘she went away, and was no more sad(1 Samuel 1:18). And if it has these rare effects, then it works for good.
The Lord’s Supper works for good. It is an emblem of the marriage-supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9), and an earnest of that communion we shall have with Christ in glory. It is a feast of fat things; it gives us bread from Heaven, such as preserves life, and prevents death. It has glorious effects in the hearts of the godly. It quickens their affections, strengthens their graces, mortifies their corruptions, revives their hopes, and increases their joy. Luther says, ‘It is as great a work to comfort a dejected soul, as to raise the dead to life’ ; yet this may and sometimes is done to the souls of the godly in the blessed Supper.

4. The graces of the Spirit work for good.
Grace is to the soul, as light to the eye, as health to the body. Grace does to the soul, as a virtuous wife to her husband, ‘She will do him good all the days of her life(Proverbs 31:12). How incomparably useful are the graces! Faith and fear go hand in hand. Faith keeps the heart cheerful, fear keeps the heart serious. Faith keeps the heart from sinking in despair, fear keeps it from floating in presumption. All the graces display themselves in their beauty: hope is ‘the helmet(1 Thessalonians 5:8), meekness ‘the ornament(1 Peter 3:4), love ‘the bond of perfectness(Colossians 3:14). The saints’ graces are weapons to defend them, wings to elevate them, jewels to enrich them, spices to perfume them, stars to adorn them, cordials to refresh them. And does not all this work for good? The graces are our evidences for heaven. Is it not good to have our evidences at the hour of death?

5. The Angels work for the good of the Saints.
The good angels are ready to do all offices of love to the people of God. ‘Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?(Hebrews 1:14). Some of the fathers were of opinion that every believer has his guardian angel. This subject needs no hot debate. It may suffice us to know the whole hierarchy of angels is employed for the good of the saints.
The good angels do service to the saints in life. An angel did comfort the virgin Mary (Luke 1:28). The angels stopped the mouths of the lions, that they could not hurt Daniel (Daniel 6:22). A Christian has an invisible guard of angels about him. ‘He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways(Psalm 91:11). The angels are of the saints’ life guard, yea, the chief of the angels: ‘Are they not all ministering spirits?’ The highest angels take care of the lowest saints.
The good angels do service at death. The angels are about the saints’ sick-beds to comfort them. As God comforts by His Spirit, so by His angels. Christ in His agony was refreshed by an angel (Luke 22:43); so are believers in the agony of death: and when the saints’ breath expires, their souls are carried up to heaven by a convoy of angels (Luke 16:22).
The good angels also do service at the day of judgment. The angels shall open the saints’ graves, and shall conduct them into the presence of Christ, when they shall be made like His glorious body. ‘He shall send his angels, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the one end of heaven to the other(Matthew 24:31). The angels at the day of judgment shall rid the godly of all their enemies. Here the saints are plagued with enemies. ‘They are mine adversaries, because I follow the thing that is good(Psalm 38:20). Well, the angels will shortly give God’s people a writ of ease, and set them free from all their enemies: ‘The tares are the children of the wicked one, the harvest is the end of the world, the reapers are the angels; as therefore the tares are gathered and burnt in the fire, so shall it be in the end of the world: the Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and cast them into a furnace of fire(Matthew 13:38-42). At the day of judgment the angels of God will take the wicked, which are the tares, and will bundle them up, and throw them into hell-furnace, and then the godly will not be troubled with enemies any more: thus the good angels work for good. See here the honour and dignity of a believer. He has God’s name written upon him (Revelation 3:12), the Holy Ghost dwelling in him (2 Timothy 1:14), and a guard of angels attending him.

6. The Communion of Saints works for good.
We are helpers of your joy(2 Corinthians 1:24). One Christian conversing with another is a means to confirm him. As the stones in an arch help to strengthen one another, one Christian by imparting his experience, heats and quickens another. ‘Let us provoke one another to love, and to good works(Hebrews 10:24). How does grace flourish by holy conference! A Christian by good discourse drops that oil upon another, which makes the lamp of his faith burn the brighter.

7. Christ’s intercession works for good.
Christ is in heaven, as Aaron with his golden plate upon his forehead, and his precious incense; and He prays for all believers as well as He did for the apostles. ‘Neither pray I for these alone but for all them that shall believe in me(John 17:20). When a Christian is weak, and can hardly pray for himself, Jesus Christ is praying for him; and He prays for three things. First, that the saints may be kept from sin (John 17:15). ‘I pray that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.’ We live in the world as in a pest-house; Christ prays that His saints may not be infected with the contagious evil of the times. Second, for His people’s progress in holiness. ‘Sanctify them(John 17:17). Let them have constant supplies of the Spirit, and be anointed with fresh oil. Third, for their glorification ‘Father, I will that those which thou hast given me, be with me where I am(John 17:24). Christ is not content till the saints are in His arms. This prayer, which He made on earth, is the copy and pattern of His prayer in heaven. What a comfort is this; when Satan is tempting, Christ is praying! This works for good.
Christ’s prayer takes away the sins of our prayers. As a child says Ambrose, that is willing to present his father with a posy, goes into the garden, and there gathers some flowers and some weeds together, but coming to his mother, she picks out the weeds and binds the flowers, and so it is presented to the father: thus when we have put up our prayers, Christ comes, and picks away the weeds, the sin of our prayer, and presents nothing but flowers to His Father, which are a sweet smelling savour.

8. The prayers of Saints work for good to the godly.
The saints pray for all the members of the body mystical, their prayers prevail much. They prevail for recovery from sickness ‘The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up(James 5:15). They prevail for victory over enemies. ‘Lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left(Isaiah 37:4). ‘Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote, in the camp of the Assyrians, an hundred and fourscore and five thousand(Isaiah 37:36). They prevail for deliverance out of prison. ‘Prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And behold the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison, and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, and his chains fell off(Acts 12:5-7). The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer fetched the angel. They prevail for forgiveness of sin. ‘My servant Job shall pray for you, for him will I accept(Job 42:8). Thus the prayers of the saints work for good to the body mystical. And this is no small privilege to a child of God, that he has a constant trade of prayer driven for him. When he comes into any place, he may say, ‘I have some prayer here, nay, all the world over I have a stock of prayer going for me. When I am indisposed, and out of tune, others are praying for me, who are quick and lively.’ Thus the best things work for good to the people of God.


Chapter Two

THE WORST THINGS WORK FOR GOOD TO THE GODLY
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Do not mistake me, I do not say that of their own nature the worst things are good, for they are a fruit of the curse; but though they are naturally evil, yet the wise overruling hand of God disposing and sanctifying them, they are morally good. As the elements, though of contrary qualities, yet God has so tempered them, that they all work in a harmonious manner for the good of the universe. Or as in a watch, the wheels seem to move contrary one to another, but all carry on the motions of the watch: so things that seem to move cross to the godly, yet by the wonderful providence of God work for their good. Among these worst things, there are four sad evils that work for good to them that love God.

1. The evil of affliction works for good to the godly.
It is one heart-quieting consideration in all the afflictions that befall us, that God has a special hand in them: ‘The Almighty hath afflicted me(Ruth 1:21). Instruments can no more stir till God gives them a commission, than the axe can cut of itself without a hand. Job eyed God in his affliction: therefore, as Augustine observes, he does not say, ‘The LORD gave, and the devil took away,’ but, ‘The LORD hath taken away.’ Whoever brings an affliction to us, it is God that sends it.
Another heart-quieting consideration is, that afflictions work for good. ‘Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for their good(Jeremiah 24:5). Judah’s captivity in Babylon was for their good. ‘It is good for me that I have been afflicted(Psalm 119:71). This text, like Moses’ tree cast into the bitter waters of affliction, may make them sweet and wholesome to drink. Afflictions to the godly are medicinal. Out of the most poisonous drugs God extracts our salvation. Afflictions are as needful as ordinances (1 Peter 1:6). No vessel can be made of gold without fire; so it is impossible that we should be made vessels of honour, unless we are melted and refined in the furnace of affliction. ‘All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth(Psalm 25:10). As the painter intermixes bright colours with dark shadows; so the wise God mixes mercy with judgment. Those afflictive providences which seem to be prejudicial, are beneficial. Let us take some instances in Scripture.
Joseph’s brethren throw him into a pit; afterwards they sell him; then he is cast into prison; yet all this worked for his good. His abasement made way for his advancement, he was made the second man in the kingdom. ‘Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it for good(Genesis 50:20). Jacob wrestled with the angel, and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint. This was sad; but God turned it to good, for there he saw God’s face, and there the Lord blessed him. ‘Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face(Genesis 32:30). Who would not be willing to have a bone out of joint, so that he might have a sight of God?
King Manasseh was bound in chains. This was sad to see - a crown of gold exchanged for fetters; but it wrought for his good, for, ‘When he was in affliction he besought the LORD, and humbled himself greatly, and the LORD was intreated of him(2 Chronicles 33:11-13). He was more beholden to his iron chain, than to his golden crown; the one made him proud, the other made him humble.
Job was a spectacle of misery; he lost all that ever he had; he abounded only in boils and ulcers. This was sad; but it wrought for his good, his grace was proved and improved. God gave a testimony from heaven of his integrity, and did compensate his loss by giving him twice as much as ever he had before (Job 42:10).
Paul was smitten with blindness. This was uncomfortable, but it turned to his good. By that blindness God made way for the light of grace to shine into his soul; it was the beginning of a happy conversion (Acts 9:8-9).
As the hard frosts in winter bring on the flowers in the spring, as the night ushers in the morning-star, so the evils of affliction produce much good to those that love God. But we are ready to question the truth of this, and say, as Mary did to the angel, ‘How can this be?’ Therefore I shall show you several ways how affliction works for good.
(1) As it is our preacher and tutor - ‘Hear ye the rod(Micah 6:9). Luther said that he could never rightly understand some of the Psalms, till he was in affliction. Affliction teaches what sin is. In the word preached, we hear what a dreadful thing sin is, that it is both defiling and damning, but we fear it no more than a painted lion; therefore God lets loose affliction, and then we feel sin bitter in the fruit of it. A sick-bed often teaches more than a sermon. We can best see the ugly visage of sin in the glass of affliction. Affliction teaches us to know ourselves. In prosperity we are for the most part strangers to ourselves. God makes us know affliction, that we may better know ourselves. We see that corruption in our hearts in the time of affliction, which we would not believe was there. Water in the glass looks clear, but set it on the fire, and the scum boils up. In prosperity, a man seems to be humble and thankful, the water looks clear; but set this man a little on the fire of affliction, and the scum boils up - much impatience and unbelief appear. ‘Oh,’ says a Christian, ‘I never thought I had such a bad heart, as now I see I have: I never thought my corruptions had been so strong, and my graces so weak.’
(2) Afflictions work for good, as they are the means of making the heart more upright. In prosperity the heart is apt to be divided (Hosea 10:2). The heart cleaves partly to God, and partly to the world. It is like a needle between two loadstones: God draws, and the world draws. Now God takes away the world, that the heart may cleave more to Him in sincerity. Correction is a setting the heart right and straight. As we sometimes hold a crooked rod over the fire to straighten it; so God holds us over the fire of affliction to make us more straight and upright. Oh, how good it is, when sin has bent the soul awry from God, that affliction should straighten it again!
(3) Afflictions work for good, as they conform us to Christ. God’s rod is a pencil to draw Christ’s image more lively upon us. It is good that there should be symmetry and proportion between the Head and the members. Would we be parts of Christ’s mystical body, and not be like Him? His life, as Calvin says, was a series of sufferings, ‘a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief(Isaiah 53:3). He wept, and bled. Was His head crowned with thorns, and do we think to be crowned with roses? It is good to be like Christ, though it be by sufferings. Jesus Christ drank a bitter cup, it made Him sweat drops of blood to think of it; and, though it be true He drank the poison in the cup (the wrath of God) yet there is some wormwood in the cup left, which the saints must drink: only here is the difference between Christ’s sufferings and ours; His were satisfactory, ours are only castigatory.
(4) Afflictions work for good to the godly, as they are destructive to sin. Sin is the mother, affliction is the daughter; the daughter helps to destroy the mother. Sin is like the tree that breeds the worm, and affliction is like the worm that eats the tree. There is much corruption in the best heart: affliction does by degrees work it out, as the fire works out the dross from the gold, ‘This is all the fruit, to take away his sin(Isaiah 27:9). What if we have more of the rough file, if we have less rust! Afflictions carry away nothing but the dross of sin. If a physician should say to a patient, ‘Your body is distempered, and full of bad humours, which must be cleared out, or you die; but I will prescribe physic which, though it may make you sick, yet it will carry away the dregs of your disease, and save your life’; would not this be for the good of the patient? Afflictions are the medicine which God uses to carry off our spiritual diseases; they cure the timpani of pride, the fever of lust, the dropsy of covetousness. Do they not then work for good?
(5) Afflictions work for good, as they are the means of loosening our hearts from the world. When you dig away the earth from the root of a tree, it is to loosen the tree from the earth: so God digs away our earthly comforts to loosen our hearts from the earth. A thorn grows up with every flower. God would have the world hang as a loose tooth which, being twitched away does not much trouble us. Is it not good to be weaned? The oldest saints need it. Why does the Lord break the conduit-pipe, but that we may go to Him, in whom are ‘all our fresh springs’ (Psalm 87:7).
(6) Afflictions work for good, as they make way for comfort. ‘In the valley of Achor is a door of hope(Hosea 2:15). Achor signifies trouble. God sweetens outward pain with inward peace. ‘Your sorrow shall he turned into joy(John 16:20). Here is the water turned into wine. After a bitter pill, God gives sugar. Paul had his prison-songs. God’s rod has honey at the end of it. The saints in affliction have had such sweet raptures of joy, that they thought themselves in the borders of the heavenly Canaan.
(7) Afflictions work for good, as they are a magnifying of us. ‘What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him, and that thou shouldest visit him every morning?(Job 7:17). God does by affliction magnify us three ways. (a) In that He will condescend so low as to take notice of us. It is an honour that God will mind dust and ashes. It is a magnifying of us, that God thinks us worthy to be smitten. God’s not striking is a slighting: ‘Why should ye be stricken any more?(Isaiah 1:5). If you will go on in sin, take your course, sin yourselves into hell. (b) Afflictions also magnify us, as they are ensigns of glory, signs of sonship. ‘If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons(Hebrews 12:7). Every print of the rod is a badge of honour. (c) Afflictions tend to the magnifying of the saints, as they make them renowned in the world. Soldiers have never been so admired for their victories, as the saints have been for their sufferings. The zeal and constancy of the martyrs in their trials have rendered them famous to posterity. How eminent was Job for his patience! God leaves his name upon record: ‘Ye have heard of the patience of Job(James 5:11). Job the sufferer was more renowned than Alexander the conqueror.
(8) Afflictions work for good, as they are the means of making us happy. ‘Happy is the man whom God correcteth(Job 5:17). What politician or moralist ever placed happiness in the cross? Job does. ‘Happy is the man whom God correcteth.
It may be said, How do afflictions make us happy? We reply that, being sanctified, they bring us nearer to God. The moon in the full is furthest off from the sun: so are many further off from God in the full-moon of prosperity; afflictions bring them nearer to God. The magnet of mercy does not draw us so near to God as the cords of affliction. When Absalom set Joab’s corn on fire, then he came running to Absalom (2 Samuel 14:30, 31). When God sets our worldly comforts on fire, then we run to Him, and make our peace with Him. When the prodigal was pinched with want, then he returned home to his father (Luke 15:13-18). When the dove could not find any rest for the sole of her foot, then she flew to the ark. When God brings a deluge of affliction upon us, then we fly to the ark of Christ. Thus affliction makes us happy, in bringing us nearer to God. Faith can make use of the waters of affliction, to swim faster to Christ.
(9) Afflictions work for good, as they put to silence the wicked. How ready are they to asperse and calumniate the godly, that they serve God only for self-interest. Therefore God will have His people endure sufferings for religion, that He may put a padlock on the lying lips of wicked men. When the atheists of the world see that God has a people, who serve Him not for a livery, but for love, this stops their mouths. The devil accused Job of hypocrisy, that he was a mercenary man, all his religion was made up of ends of gold and silver. ‘Doth Job serve God for naught? Hast not thou made a hedge about him?’ Etc. ‘Well,’ says God, ‘put forth thy hand, touch his estate(Job 1:9-12). The devil had no sooner received a commission, but he falls a breaking down Job’s hedge; but still Job worships God (Job 1:20), and professes his faith in Him. ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him(Job 13:15). This silenced the devil himself. How it strikes a damp into wicked men, when they see that the godly will keep close to God in a suffering condition, and that, when they lose all, they yet will hold fast their integrity.
(10) Afflictions work for good, as they make way for glory (2 Corinthians 4:17). Not that they merit glory, but they prepare for it. As ploughing prepares the earth for a crop, so afflictions prepare and make us meet for glory. The painter lays his gold upon dark colours, so God first lays the dark colours of affliction, and then He lays the golden colour of glory. The vessel is first seasoned before wine is poured into it: the vessels of mercy are first seasoned with affliction, and then the wine of glory is poured in. Thus we see afflictions are not prejudicial, but beneficial, to the saints. We should not so much look at the evil of affliction, as the good; not so much at the dark side of the cloud, as the light. The worst that God does to His children is to whip them to heaven.

2. The evil of temptation is overruled for good to the godly.
The evil of temptation works for good. Satan is called the tempter (Matthew 4:3). He is ever lying in ambush, he is continually at work with one saint or another. The devil has his circuit that he walks every day: he is not yet fully cast into prison, but, like a prisoner that goes under bail, he walks about to tempt the saints. This is a great molestation to a child of God. Now concerning Satan’s temptations; there are three things to be considered. (1). His method in tempting. (2). The extent of his power. (3). These temptations are overruled for good.
(1) Satan’s method in tempting. Here take notice of two things. His violence in tempting; and so he is the red dragon. He labours to storm the castle of the heart, he throws in thoughts of blasphemy, he tempts to deny God: these are the fiery darts he shoots, by which he would inflame the passions. Also, his subtlety in tempting; and so he is the old serpent. There are five chief subtleties the devil uses.
(a) He observes the temperament and constitution: he lays suitable baits of temptation. Like the farmer, he knows what grain is best for the soil. Satan will not tempt contrary to the natural disposition and temperament. This is his policy, he makes the wind and tide go together; that way the natural tide of the heart runs, that way the wind of temptation blows. Though the devil cannot know men’s thoughts, yet he knows their temperament, and accordingly he lays his baits. He tempts the ambitious man with a crown, the sanguine man with beauty.
(b) Satan observes the fittest time to tempt in as a cunning angler casts in his angle when the fish will bite best. Satan’s time of tempting is usually after an ordinance: and the reason is, he thinks he shall find us most secure. When we have been at solemn duties, we are apt to think all is done, and we grow remiss, and leave off that zeal and strictness as before; just as a soldier, who after a battle leaves off his armour, not once dreaming of an enemy. Satan watches his time, and, when we least suspect, then he throws in a temptation.
(c) He makes use of near relations; the devil tempts by a proxy. Thus he handed over a temptation to Job by his wife. ‘Dost thou still retain thy integrity?(Job 2:9). A wife in the bosom may be the devil’s instrument to tempt to sin.
(d) Satan tempts to evil by them that are good, thus he gives poison in a golden cup. He tempted Christ by Peter. Peter dissuades him from suffering. Master, pity Thyself. Who would have thought to have found the tempter in the mouth of an apostle?
(e) Satan tempts to sin under a pretense of religion. He is most to be feared when he transforms himself into an angel of light. He came to Christ with Scripture in his mouth: ‘It is written.’ The devil baits his hook with religion. He tempts many a man to covetousness and extortion under a pretense of providing for his family, he tempts some to do away with themselves, that they may live no longer to sin against God; and so he draws them into sin, under a pretense of avoiding sin. These are his subtle stratagems in tempting.
(2) The extent of his power; how far Satan’s power in tempting reaches.
(a) He can propose the object; as he set a wedge of gold before Achan.
(b) He can poison the fancy, and instill evil thoughts into the mind. As the Holy Ghost casts in good suggestions, so the devil casts in bad ones. He put it into Judas’ heart to betray Christ (John 13:2).
(c) Satan can excite and irritate the corruption within, and work some kind of inclination in the heart to embrace a temptation. Though it is true Satan cannot force the will to yield consent, yet he being an earnest suitor, by his continual solicitation, may provoke to evil. Thus he provoked David to number the people (1 Chronicles 21:1). The devil may, by his subtle arguments, dispute us into sin.
(3) These temptations are overruled for good to the children of God. A tree that is shaken by the wind is more settled and rooted; so, the blowing of a temptation does but settle a Christian the more in grace. Temptations are overruled for good in eight ways:
(a) Temptation sends the soul to prayer. The more furiously Satan tempts, the more fervently the saint prays. The deer being shot with the dart, runs faster to the water. When Satan shoots his fiery darts at the soul, it then runs faster to the throne of grace. When Paul had the messenger of Satan to buffet him, he says, ‘For this I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me(2 Corinthians 12:8). Temptation is a medicine for security. That which makes us pray more, works for good.
(b) Temptation to sin, is a means to keep from the perpetration of sin. The more a child of God is tempted, the more he fights against the temptation. The more Satan tempts to blasphemy, the more a saint trembles at such thoughts, and says, ‘Get thee hence, Satan.’ When Joseph’s mistress tempted him to folly, the stronger her temptation was, the stronger was his opposition. That temptation which the devil uses as a spur to sin, God makes a bridle to keep back a Christian from it.
(c) Temptation works for good, as it abates the swelling of pride. ‘Lest I should be exalted above measure, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me( 2 Corinthians 12:7). The thorn in the flesh was to puncture the puffing up of pride. Better is that temptation which humbles me, than that duty which makes me proud. Rather than a Christian shall be haughty-minded, God will let him fall into the devil’s hands awhile, to be cured of his imposthume.
(d) Temptation works for good, as it is a touch-stone to try what is in the heart. The devil tempts, that he may deceive; but God suffers us to be tempted, to try us. Temptation is a trial of our sincerity. It argues that our heart is chaste and loyal to Christ, when we can look a temptation in the face, and turn our back upon it. Also it is a trial of our courage. ‘Ephraim is a silly dove, without heart(Hosea 7:11). So it may be said of many, they are without a heart; they have no heart to resist temptation. No sooner does Satan come, but they yield; like a coward who, as soon as the thief approaches, gives him his purse. But he is the valorous Christian, that brandishes the sword of the Spirit against Satan, and will rather die than yield. The courage of the Romans was never more seen than when they were assaulted by the Carthaginians: the valour and puissance of a saint is never more seen than on a battlefield, when he is fighting the red dragon, and by the power of faith puts the devil to flight. That grace is tried gold, which can stand in the fiery trial, and withstand fiery darts.
(e) Temptations work for good, as God makes those who are tempted, fit to comfort others in the same distress. A Christian must himself be under the buffetings of Satan, before he can speak a word in due season to him that is weary. St. Paul was versed in temptations. ‘We are not ignorant of his devices(2 Corinthians 2:11). Thus he was able to acquaint others with Satan’s cursed wiles (1 Corinthians 10:13). A man that has ridden over a place where there are bogs and quicksands, is the fittest to guide others through that dangerous way. He that has felt the claws of the roaring lion, and has lain bleeding under those wounds, is the fittest man to deal with one that is tempted. None can better discover Satan’s sleights and policies, than those who have been long in the fencing-school of temptation.
(f) Temptations work for good, as they stir up paternal compassion in God to them who are tempted. The child who is sick and bruised is most looked after. When a saint lies under the bruising of temptations, Christ prays, and God the Father pities. When Satan puts the soul into a fever, God comes with a cordial; which made Luther say, that temptations are Christ’s embraces, because He then most sweetly manifests Himself to the soul.
(g) Temptations work for good, as they make the saints long more for heaven. There they shall be out of gunshot; heaven is a place of rest, no bullets of temptation fly there. The eagle that soars aloft in the air, and sits upon high trees, is not troubled with the stinging of the serpent: so when believers are ascended to heaven, they shall not be molested with the old serpent. In this life, when one temptation is over, another comes. This is to make God’s people wish for death to sound a retreat, and call them off the field where the bullets fly so quick, to receive a victorious crown, where not the drum or cannon, but the harp and viol, shall be ever sounding.
(h) Temptations work for good, as they engage the strength of Christ. Christ is our Friend, and when we are tempted, He sets all His power working for us. ‘For in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted(Hebrews 2:18). If a poor soul was to fight alone with the Goliath of hell, he would be sure to be vanquished, but Jesus Christ brings in His auxiliary forces, He gives fresh supplies of grace. ‘And through him we are more than conquerors(Romans 8:37). Thus the evil of temptation is overruled for good.
Question. But sometimes Satan foils a child of God. How does this work for good?
Answer. I grant that, through the suspension of divine grace, and the fury of a temptation, a saint may be overcome; yet this foiling by a temptation shall be overruled for good. By this foil God makes way for the augmentation of grace. Peter was tempted to self-confidence, he presumed upon his own strength; and when he would needs stand alone, Christ let him fall. But this wrought for his good, it cost him many a tear. ‘He went out, and wept bitterly(Matthew 26:75). And now he grows more modest. He durst not say he loved Christ more than the other apostles. ‘Lovest thou me more than these?(John 21:15). He durst not say so, his fall broke the neck of his pride. The foiling by a temptation causes more circumspection and watchfulness in a child of God. Though Satan did before decoy him into sin, yet for the future he will be the more cautious. He will have a care of coming within the lion’s chain any more. He is more shy and fearful of the occasions of sin. He never goes out without his spiritual armour, and he girds on his armour by prayer. He knows he walks on slippery ground, therefore he looks wisely to his steps. He keeps close sentinel in his soul, and when he spies the devil coming, he stands to his arms, and displays the skill of faith (Ephesians 6:16). This is all the hurt the devil does. When he foils a saint by temptation, he cures him of his careless neglect; he makes him watch and pray more. When wild beasts get over the hedge and hurt the corn, a man will make his fence the stronger: so, when the devil gets over the hedge by a temptation, a Christian will be sure to mend his fence; he will become more fearful of sin, and careful of duty. Thus the being worsted by temptation works for good.
Objection. But if being foiled works for good, this may make Christians careless whether they are overcome by temptations or no.
Answer. There is a great deal of difference between falling into a temptation, and running into a temptation. The falling into a temptation shall work for good, not the running into it. He that falls into a river is capable of help and pity, but he that desperately turns into it is guilty of his own death. It is madness running into a lion’s den. He that runs himself into a temptation is like Saul, who fell upon his own sword.
From all that has been said, see how God disappoints the old serpent, making his temptations turn to the good of His people. Surely if the devil knew how much benefit accrues to the saints by temptation, he would forbear to tempt. Luther once said, ‘There are three things make a Christian - prayer, meditation, and temptation.’ The apostle Paul, in his voyage to Rome, met with a contrary wind (Acts 27:4). So the wind of temptation is a contrary wind to that of the Spirit; but God makes use of this cross-wind, to blow the saints to heaven.

3. The evil of desertion works for good to the godly.
The evil of desertion works for good. The spouse complains of desertion. ‘My beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone(Song of Solomon 5:6). There is a twofold withdrawing; either in regard of grace, when God suspends the influence of His Spirit, and withholds the lively actings of grace. If the Spirit be gone, grace freezes into a chillness and indolence. Or, a withdrawing in regard of comfort. When God withholds the sweet manifestations of His favour, He does not look with such a pleasant aspect, but veils His face, and seems to be quite gone from the soul.
God is just in all His withdrawings. We desert Him before He deserts us. We desert God when we leave off close communion with Him, when we desert His truths and dare not appear for Him, when we leave the guidance and conduct of His word and follow the deceitful light of our own corrupt affections and passions. We usually desert God first; therefore we have none to blame but ourselves.
Desertion is very sad, for as when the light is withdrawn, darkness follows in the air, so when God withdraws, there is darkness and sorrow in the soul. Desertion is an agony of conscience. God holds the soul over hell. ‘The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinks up my spirits(Job 6:4). It was a custom among the Persians in their wars to dip their arrows in the poison of serpents to make them more deadly. Thus did God shoot the poisoned arrow of desertion into Job, under the wounds of which his spirit lay bleeding. In times of desertion the people of God are apt to be dejected. They dispute against themselves, and think that God has quite cast them off. Therefore I shall prescribe some comfort to the deserted soul. The mariner, when he has no star to guide him, yet he has light in his lantern, which is some help to him to see his compass; so, I shall lay down four consolations, which are as the mariner’s lantern, to give some light when the poor soul is sailing in the dark of desertion, and wants the bright morning star.
(1) None but the godly are capable of desertion. Wicked men know not what God’s love means, nor what it is to want it. They know what it is to want health, friends, trade, but not what it is to want God’s favour. You fear you are not God’s child because you are deserted. The Lord cannot be said to withdraw His love from the wicked, because they never had it. The being deserted, evidences you to be a child of God. How could you complain that God has estranged Himself, if you had not sometimes received smiles and tokens of love from Him?
(2) There may be the seed of grace, where there is not the flower of joy. The earth may want a crop of corn, yet may have a mine of gold within. A Christian may have grace within, though the sweet fruit of joy does not grow. Vessels at sea, that are richly fraught with jewels and spices, may be in the dark and tossed in the storm. A soul enriched with the treasures of grace, may yet be in the dark of desertion, and so tossed as to think it shall be cast away in the storm. David, in a state of dejection, prays, ‘Take not thy Holy Spirit from me(Psalm 51:11). He does not pray, says Augustine, ‘Lord, give me thy Spirit’ , but ‘Take not away thy Spirit’ , so that still he had the Spirit of God remaining in him.
(3) These desertions are but for a time. Christ may withdraw, and leave the soul awhile, but He will come again. ‘In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee(Isaiah 54:8). When it is dead low water, the tide will come in again. ‘I will not be always wroth, for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made(Isaiah 57:16). The tender mother sets down her child in anger, but she will take it up again into her arms, and kiss it. God may put away the soul in anger, but He will take it up again into His dear embraces, and display the banner of love over it.
(4) These desertions work for good to the godly.
Desertion cures the soul of sloth. We find the spouse fallen upon the bed of sloth: ‘I sleep(Song of Solomon 5:2). And presently Christ was gone. ‘My beloved had withdrawn himself(Song of Solomon 5:6). Who will speak to one that is drowsy?
Desertion cures inordinate affection to the world. ‘Love not the world(1 John 2:15). We may hold the world as a posy in our hand, but it must not lie too near our heart. We may use it as an inn where we take a meal, but it must not be our home. Perhaps these secular things steal away the heart too much. Good men are sometimes sick with a surfeit, and drunk with the luscious delights of prosperity: and having spotted their silver wings of grace, and much defaced God’s image by rubbing it against the earth, the Lord, to recover them of this, hides His face in a cloud. This eclipse has good effects, it darkens all the glory of the world, and causes it to disappear.
Desertion works for good, as it makes the saints prize God’s countenance more than ever. ‘Thy loving-kindness is better than life(Psalm 63:3). Yet the commonness of this mercy lessens it in our esteem. When pearls grew common at Rome, they began to be slighted. God has no better way to make us value His love, than by withdrawing it awhile. If the sun shone but once a year, how would it be prized! When the soul has been long benighted with desertion, oh how welcome now is the return of the Sun of righteousness!
Desertion works for good, as it is the means of embittering sin to us. Can there be a greater misery than to have God’s displeasure? What makes hell, but the hiding of God’s face? And what makes God hide His face, but sin? ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him(John 20:13). So, our sins have taken away the Lord, and we know not where He is laid. The favour of God is the best jewel; it can sweeten a prison, and unsting death. Oh, how odious then is that sin, which robs us of our best jewel! Sin made God desert His temple (Ezekiel 8:6). Sin causes Him to appear as an enemy, and dress Himself in armour. This makes the soul pursue sin with a holy malice, and seek to be avenged of it. The deserted soul gives sin gall and vinegar to drink, and, with the spear of mortification, lets out the heart-blood of it.
Desertion works for good, as it sets the soul a weeping for the loss of God. When the sun is gone, the dew falls; and when God is gone, tears drop from the eyes. How Micah was troubled when he had lost his gods! ‘Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I more?(Judges 18:24). So when God is gone, what have we more? It is not the harp and viol can comfort when God is gone. Though it be sad to want God’s presence, yet it is good to lament His absence.
Desertion sets the soul to seeking after God. When Christ was departed, the spouse pursues after Him, she seeks Him ‘in the streets of the city(Song of Solomon 3:2). And not having found Him, she makes a hue-and-cry after Him. ‘Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?(Song of Solomon 3:3). The deserted soul sends up whole volleys of sighs and groans. It knocks at heaven’s gate by prayer, it can have no rest till the golden beams of God’s face shine.
Desertion puts the Christian upon inquiry. He inquires the cause of God’s departure. What is the accursed thing that has made God angry? Perhaps pride, perhaps surfeit on ordinances, perhaps worldliness. ‘For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth; I hid me(Isaiah 57:17). Perhaps there is some secret sin allowed. A stone in the pipe hinders the current of water; so, sin lived in, hinders the sweet current of God’s love. Thus conscience, as a bloodhound, having found out sin and overtaken it, this Achan is stoned to death.
Desertion works for good, as it gives us a sight of what Jesus Christ suffered for us. If the sipping of the cup be so bitter, how bitter was that which Christ drank upon the cross? He drank a cup of deadly poison, which made Him cry out, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?(Matthew 27:46). None can so appreciate Christ’s sufferings, none can be so fired with love to Christ, as those who have been humbled by desertion, and have been held over the flames of hell for a time.
Desertion works for good, as it prepares the saints for future comfort. The nipping frosts prepare for spring flowers. It is God’s way, first to cast down, then to comfort (2 Corinthians 7:6). When our Saviour had been fasting, then came the angels and ministered to Him. When the Lord has kept His people long fasting, then He sends the Comforter, and feeds them with the hidden manna. ‘Light is sown for the righteous(Psalm 97:11). The saints’ comforts may be hidden like seed under ground, but the seed is ripening, and will increase, and flourish into a crop.
These desertions work for good, as they will make heaven the sweeter to us. Here our comforts are like the moon, sometimes they are in the full, sometimes in the wane. God shows Himself to us awhile, and then retires from us. How will this set off heaven the more, and make it more delightful and ravishing, when we shall have a constant aspect of love from God (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
Thus we see desertions work for good. The Lord brings us into the deep of desertion, that He may not bring us into the deep of damnation. He puts us into a seeming hell, that He may keep us from a real hell. God is fitting us for that time when we shall enjoy His smiles for ever, when there shall be neither clouds in His face or sun setting, when Christ shall come and stay with His spouse, and the spouse shall never say again, ‘My beloved hath withdrawn himself.’

4. The evil of sin works for good to the godly.
Sin in its own nature is damnable, but God in His infinite wisdom overrules it, and causes good to arise from that which seems most to oppose it. Indeed, it is a matter of wonder that any honey should come out of this lion. We may understand it in a double sense.
(1) The sins of others are overruled for good to the godly. It is no small trouble to a gracious heart to live among the wicked. ‘Woe is me, that I dwell in Mesech(Psalm 120:5). Yet even this the Lord turns to good. For,
(a) The sins of others work for good to the godly, as they produce holy sorrow. God’s people weep for what they cannot reform. ‘Rivers of tears run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law(Psalm 119:136). David was a mourner for the sins of the times; his heart was turned into a spring, and his eyes into rivers. Wicked men make merry with sin. ‘When thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest(Jeremiah 11:15). But the godly are weeping doves; they grieve for the oaths and blasphemies of the age. The sins of others, like spears, pierce their souls. This grieving for the sins of others is good. It shows a childlike heart, to resent with sorrow the injuries done to our heavenly Father. It also shows a Christ-like heart. ‘He was grieved for the hardness of their hearts(Mark 3:5). The Lord takes special notice of these tears: He likes it well, that we should weep when His glory suffers. It argues more grace to grieve for the sins of others than for our own. We may grieve for our own sins out of fear of hell, but to grieve for the sins of others is from a principle of love to God. These tears drop as water from the roses, they are sweet and fragrant, and God puts them in His bottle.
(b) The sins of others work for good to the godly, as they set them the more a praying against sin. If there were not such a spirit of wickedness abroad, perhaps there would not be such a spirit of prayer. Crying sins cause crying prayers. The people of God pray against the iniquity of the times, that God will give a check to sin, that He will put sin to the blush. If they cannot pray down sin, they pray against it; and this God takes kindly. These prayers shall both be recorded and rewarded. Though we do not prevail in prayer, we shall not lose our prayers. ‘My prayer returned into mine own bosom(Psalm 35:13).
(c) The sins of others work for good, as they make us the more in love with grace. The sins of others are a foil to set off the lustre of grace the more. One contrary sets off another: deformity sets off beauty. The sins of the wicked do much disfigure them. Pride is a disfiguring sin; now the beholding another’s pride makes us the more in love with humility! Malice is a disfiguring sin, it is the devil’s picture; the more of this we see in others the more we love meekness and charity. Drunkenness is a disfiguring sin, it turns men into beasts, it deprives of the use of reason; the more intemperate we see others, the more we must love sobriety. The black face of sin sets off the beauty of holiness so much the more.
(d) The sins of others work for good, as they work in us the stronger opposition against sin. ‘The wicked have made void thy law; therefore I love thy commandments(Psalm 119:126, 127). David had never loved God’s law so much, if the wicked had not set themselves so much against it. The more violent others are against the truth, the more valiant the saints are for it. Living fish swim against the stream; the more the tide comes in, the more the godly swim against it. The impieties of the times provoke holy passions in the saints; that anger is without sin, which is against sin. The sins of others are as a whetstone to set the sharper edge upon us; they whet our zeal and indignation against sin the more.
(e) The sins of others work for good, as they make us more earnest in working out our salvation. When we see wicked men take such pains for hell, this makes us more industrious for heaven. The wicked have nothing to encourage them, yet they sin. They venture shame and disgrace, they break through all opposition. Scripture is against them, and conscience is against them, there is a flaming sword in the way, yet they sin. Godly hearts, seeing the wicked thus mad for the forbidden fruit, and wearing out themselves in the devil’s service, are the more emboldened and quickened in the ways of God. They will take heaven as it were by storm. The wicked are swift dromedaries in sin (Jeremiah 2:23). And do we creep like snails in religion? Shall impure sinners do the devil more service than we do Christ? Shall they make more haste to a prison, than we do to a kingdom? Are they never weary of sinning, and are we weary of praying? Have we not a better Master than they? Are not the paths of virtue pleasant? Is not there joy in the way of duty, and heaven at the end? The activity of the sons of Belial in sin, is a spur to the godly to make them mend their pace, and run the faster to heaven.
(f) The sins of others work for good, as they are glasses in which we may see our own hearts. Do we see a flagitious, impious sinner? Behold a picture of our hearts. Such should we be, if God did leave us. What is in other men’s practice, is in our nature. Sin in the wicked is like fire on a beacon, that flames and blazes forth; sin in the godly is like fire in the embers. Christian, though you do not break forth into a flame of scandal, yet you have no cause to boast, for there is much sin raked up in the embers of your nature. You have the root of bitterness in you, and would bear as hellish fruit as any, if God did not either curb you by His power, or change you by His grace.
(g) The sins of others work for good, as they are the means of making the people of God more thankful. When you see another infected with the plague, how thankful are you that God has preserved you from it! It is a good use that may be made of the sins of others, to make us more thankful. Why might not God have left us to the same excess of riot? Think with yourself, O Christian, why should God be more propitious to you than to another? Why should He take you out of the wild olive of nature, and not him? How may this make you to adore free grace. What the Pharisee said boastingly, we may say thankfully, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, etc.(Luke 18:11). So we should adore the riches of grace that we are not as others, drunkards, swearers, sabbath-breakers. Every time we see men hasting on in sin, we are to bless God we are not such. If we see a frenzied person, we bless God it is not so with us; much more when we see others under the power of Satan, we should make our thankful acknowledgment that it is not our condition. Let us not think lightly of sin.
(h) The sins of others work for good, as they are means of making God’s people better. Christian, God can make you a gainer by another’s sin. The more unholy others are, the more holy you should be. The more a wicked man gives himself to sin, the more a godly man gives himself to prayer. ‘But I give myself to prayer(Psalm 109:4).
(i) The sins of others work for good, as they give an occasion to us of doing good. Were there no sinners, we could not be in such a capacity for service. The godly are often the means of converting the wicked; their prudent advice and pious example is a lure and a bait to draw sinners to the embracing of the gospel. The disease of the patient works for the good of the physician; by emptying the patient of noxious humours, the physician enriches himself: so, by converting sinners from the error of their way, our crown comes to be enlarged. ‘They that turn many to righteousness, shall shine as the stars for ever and ever(Daniel 12:3). Not as lamps or tapers, but as the stars for ever. Thus we see the sins of others are overruled for our good.
(2) The sense of their own sinfulness will be overruled for the good of the godly. Thus our own sins shall work for good. This must be understood warily, when I say the sins of the godly work for good - not that there is the least good in sin. Sin is like poison, which corrupts the blood, infects the heart, and, without a sovereign antidote, brings death. Such is the venomous nature of sin, it is deadly and damning. Sin is worse than hell, but yet God, by His mighty over ruling power, makes sin in the issue turn to the good of His people. Hence that golden saying of Augustine, ‘God would never permit evil, if He could not bring good out of evil.’ The feeling of sinfulness in the saints works for good several ways.
(a) Sin makes them weary of this life. That sin is in the godly is sad, but that it is a burden is good. St. Paul’s afflictions (pardon the expression) were but a play to him, in comparison of his sin. He rejoiced in tribulation (2 Corinthians 7:4). But how did this bird of paradise weep and bemoan himself under his sins! ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?(Romans 7:24). A believer carries his sins as a prisoner his shackles; oh, how does he long for the day of release! This sense of sin is good.
(b) This in-being of corruption makes the saints prize Christ more. He that feels his sin, as a sick man feels his sickness, how welcome is Christ the physician to him! He that feels himself stung with sin, how precious is the brazen serpent to him! When Paul had cried out of a body of death, how thankful was he for Christ! ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord(Romans 7:25). Christ’s blood saves from sin, and is the sacred ointment which kills this quicksilver.
(c) This sense of sin works for good, as it is an occasion of putting the soul upon six especial duties:
(1) It puts the soul upon self searching. A child of God being conscious of sin, takes the candle and lantern of the Word, and searches into his heart. He desires to know the worst of himself; as a man who is diseased in body, desires to know the worst of his disease. Though our joy lies in the knowledge of our graces, yet there is some benefit in the knowledge of our corruptions. Therefore Job prays, ‘Make me to know my transgressions(Job 13:23). It is good to know our sins, that we may not flatter ourselves, or take our condition to be better than it is. It is good to find out our sins, lest they find us out.
(2) The inherency of sin puts a child of God upon self-abasing. Sin is left in a godly man, as a cancer in the breast, or a hunch upon the back, to keep him from being proud. Gravel and dirt are good to ballast a ship, and keep it from overturning; the sense of sin helps to ballast the soul, that it be not overturned with vain glory. We read of the ‘spots of God’s children’ (Deuteronomy 32:5). When a godly man beholds his face in the glass of Scripture, and sees the spots of infidelity and hypocrisy, this makes the plumes of pride fall; they are humbling spots. It is a good use that may be made even of our sins, when they occasion low thoughts of ourselves. Better is that sin which humbles me, than that duty which makes me proud. Holy Bradford uttered these words of himself, ‘I am a painted hypocrite’; and Hooper said, ‘Lord, I am hell, and Thou art heaven.’
(3) Sin puts a child of God on self-judging; he passes a sentence upon himself. ‘I am more brutish than any man(Proverbs 30:2). It is dangerous to judge others, but it is good to judge ourselves. ‘If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged(1 Corinthians 11:31). When a man has judged himself, Satan is put out of office. When he lays anything to a saint’s charge, he is able to retort and say, ‘It is true, Satan, I am guilty of these sins; but I have judged myself already for them; and having condemned myself in the lower court of conscience, God will acquit me in the upper court of heaven.’
(4) Sin puts a child of God upon self-conflicting. Spiritual-self conflicts with carnal-self. ‘The spirit lusts against the flesh(Galatians 5:17). Our life is a wayfaring life, and a war-faring life. There is a duel fought every day between the two seeds. A believer will not let sin have peaceable possession. If he cannot keep sin out, he will keep sin under; though he cannot quite overcome, yet he is overcoming. ‘To him that is overcoming(Revelation 2:7).
(5) Sin puts a child of God upon self-observing. He knows sin is a bosom-traitor, therefore he carefully observes himself. A subtle heart needs a watchful eye. The heart is like a castle that is in danger every hour to be assaulted; this makes a child of God to be always a sentinel, and keep a guard about his heart. A believer has a strict eye over himself, lest he fall in to any scandalous enormity, and so open a sluice to let all his comfort run out.
(6) Sin puts the soul upon self-reforming. A child of God does not only find out sin, but drives out sin. One foot he sets upon the neck of his sins, and the other foot he ‘turns to God’s testimonies’ (Psalm 119:59). Thus the sins of the godly work for good. God makes the saints’ maladies their medicines.
But let none ABUSE this doctrine. I do not say that sin works for good to an impenitent person. No, it works for his damnation, but it works for good to them that love God; and for you that are godly, I know you will NOT draw a wrong conclusion from this, either to make light of sin, or to make bold with sin. If you should do so, God wilt make it cost you dear. Remember David. He ventured presumptuously on sin, and what did he get? He lost his peace, he felt the terrors of the Almighty in his soul, though he had all helps to cheerfulness. He was a king; he had skill in music; yet nothing could administer comfort to him: he complains of his ‘broken bones’ (Psalm 51:8). And though he did at last come out of that dark cloud, yet some divines are of opinion that he never recovered his full joy to his dying day. If any of God’s people should be tampering with sin, because God can turn it to good; though the Lord does not damn them, He may send them to hell in this life. He may put them into such bitter agonies and soul-convulsions, as may fill them full of horror, and make them draw nigh to despair. Let this be a flaming sword to keep them from coming near the forbidden tree.
And thus have I shown, that both the best things and the worst things, by the overruling hand of the great God, do work together for the good of the saints.
Again, I say, THINK NOT LIGHTLY OF SIN.


Chapter Three

WHY ALL THINGS WORK FOR GOOD
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1. The grand reason why all things work for good,
is the near and dear interest which God has in His people. The Lord has made a covenant with them. ‘They shall be my people, and I will be their God(Jeremiah 32:38). By virtue of this compact, all things do, and must, work for good to them. ‘I am God, even thy God(Psalm 50:7). This word, ‘Thy God,’ is the sweetest word in the Bible, it implies the best relations; and it is impossible there should be these relations between God and His people, and everything not work for their good. This expression, ‘I am thy God,’ implies,
(1) The relation of a physician: ‘I am thy Physician.’ God is a skillful Physician. He knows what is best. God observes the different temperaments of men, and knows what will work most effectually. Some are of a more sweet disposition, and are drawn by mercy. Others are more rugged and knotty pieces; these God deals with in a more forcible way. Some things are kept in sugar, some in brine. God does not deal alike with all; He has trials for the strong and cordials for the weak. God is a faithful Physician, and therefore will turn all to the best. If God does not give you that which you like, He will give you that which you need. A physician does not so much study to please the taste of the patient, as to cure his disease. We complain that very sore trials lie upon us; let us remember God is our Physician, therefore He labours rather to heal us than humour us. God’s dealings with His children, though they are sharp, yet they are safe, and in order to cure; ‘that he might do thee good in the latter end(Deuteronomy 8:16).
(2) This word, ‘thy God’, implies the relation of a Father. A father loves his child; therefore whether it be a smile or a stroke, it is for the good of the child. I am thy God, thy Father, therefore all I do is for thy good. ‘As a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee(Deuteronomy 8:5). God’s chastening is not to destroy but to reform. God cannot hurt His children, for He is a tender-hearted Father, ‘Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him(Psalm 103:13). Will a father seek the ruin of his child, the child that came from himself, that bears his image? All his care and contrivance is for his child: whom does he settle the inheritance upon, but his child? God is the tender-hearted ‘Father of mercies(2 Corinthians 1:3). He begets all the mercies and kindness in the creatures.
God is an everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6). He was our Father from eternity; before we were children, God was our Father, and He will be our Father to eternity. A father provides for his child while he lives; but the father dies, and then the child may be exposed to injury. But God never ceases to be a Father. You who are a believer, have a Father that never dies; and if God be your father, you can never be undone. All things must needs work for your good.
(3) This word, ‘thy God,’ implies the relation of a Husband. This is a near and sweet relation. The husband seeks the good of his spouse; he were unnatural that should go about to destroy his wife. ‘No man ever yet hated his own flesh,(Ephesians 5:29). There is a marriage relation between God and His people. ‘Thy Maker is thy Husband(Isaiah 54:5). God entirely loves His people. He engraves them upon the palms of His hands (Isaiah 49:16). He sets them as a seal upon His breast (Song of Solomon 8:6). He will give kingdoms for their ransom (Isaiah 43:3). This shows how near they lie to His heart. If He be a Husband whose heart is full of love, then He will seek the good of His spouse. Either He will shield off an injury, or will turn it to the best.
(4) This word, ‘thy God,’ implies the relation of a Friend. ‘This is my friend(Song of Solomon 5:16). A friend is, as Augustine says, half one’s self. He is studious and desirous how he may do his friend good; he promotes his welfare as his own. Jonathan ventured the king’s displeasure for his friend David (1 Samuel 19:4). God is our Friend, therefore He will turn all things to our good. There are false friends; Christ was betrayed by a friend: but God is the best Friend.
He is a faithful Friend. ‘Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God(Deuteronomy 7:9). He is faithful in His love. He gave His very heart to us, when He gave the Son out of His bosom. Here was a pattern of love without a parallel. He is faithful in His promises. ‘God, that cannot lie, hath promised(Titus 1:2). He may change His promise, but cannot break it. He is faithful in His dealings; when He is afflicting He is faithful. ‘In faithfullness thou hast afflicted me(Psalm 119:75). He is sifting and refining us as silver (Psalm 66:10).
God is an immutable Friend. ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee(Hebrews 13:5). Friends often fail at a pinch. Many deal with their friends as women do with flowers; while they are fresh they put them in their bosoms, but when they begin to wither they throw them away. Or as the traveler does with the sun-dial; if the sun shines upon the dial, the traveler will step out of the road, and look upon the dial: but if the sun does not shine upon it, he will ride by, and never take any notice of it. So, if prosperity shine on men, then friends will look upon them; but if there be a cloud of adversity on them, they will not come near them. But God is a Friend for ever; He has said, ‘I will never leave thee.’ Though David walked in the shadow of death, he knew he had a Friend by him. ‘I will fear no evil, for thou art with me(Psalm 23:4). God never takes off His love wholly from His people. ‘He loved them unto the end(John 13:1). God being such a Friend, will make all things work for our good. There is no friend but will seek the good of his friend.
(5) This word, ‘thy God,’ implies yet a nearer relation, the relation between the Head and the members. There is a mystical union between Christ and the saints. He is called, ‘the Head of the church(Ephesians 5:23). Does not the head consult for the good of the body? The head guides the body, it sympathizes with it, it is the fountain of spirits, it sends forth influence and comfort into the body. All the parts of the head are placed for the good of the body. The eye is set as it were in the watch-tower, it stands sentinel to spy any danger that may come to the body, and prevent it. The tongue is both a taster and an orator. If the body be a microcosm, or little world, the head is the sun in this world, from which proceeds the light of reason. The head is placed for the good of the body. Christ and the saints make one body mystical. Our Head is in heaven, and surely He will not suffer His body to be hurt, but will consult for the safety of it, and make all things work for the good of the body mystical.

2. Inferences from the proposition that all things work for the good of the saints.
(1) If all things work for good, hence learn that there is a providence. Things do not work of themselves, but God sets them working for good. God is the great Disposer of all events and issues, He sets everything working. ‘His kingdom ruleth over all(Psalm 103:19). It is meant of His providential kingdom. Things in the world are not governed by second causes, by the counsels of men, by the stars and planets, but by divine providence. Providence is the queen and governess of the world. There are three things in providence: God’s foreknowing, God’s determining, and God’s directing all things to their periods and events. Whatever things do work in the world, God sets them a working. We read in the first of Ezekiel of wheels, and eyes in the wheels, and the moving of the wheels. The wheels are the whole universe, the eyes in the wheels are God’s providence, the moving of the wheels is the hand of Providence, turning all things here below. That which is by some called chance is nothing else but the result of providence.
Learn to adore providence. Providence has an influence upon all things here below. It is this that mingles the ingredients, and makes up the whole compound.
(2) Observe the happy condition of every child of God. All things work for his good, the best and worst things. ‘Unto the upright ariseth light in darkness(Psalm 112:4). The most dark cloudy providences of God have some sunshine in them. What a blessed condition is a true believer in! When he dies, he goes to God: and while he lives, everything shall do him good. Affliction is for his good. What hurt does the fire to the gold? It only purifies it. What hurt does the fan to the corn? It only separates the chaff from it. What hurt do leeches to the body? They only suck out the bad blood. God never uses His staff, but to beat out the dust. Affliction does that which the Word many times will not, it ‘opens the ear to discipline(Job 36:10). When God lays men upon their backs, then they look up to heaven. God’s smiting His people is like the musician’s striking upon the violin, which makes it put forth a melodious sound. How much good comes to the saints by affliction! When they are pounded and broken, they send forth their sweetest smell. Affliction is a bitter root, but it bears sweet fruit. ‘It yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness(Hebrews 12:11). Affliction is the highway to heaven; though it be flinty and thorny, yet it is the best way. Poverty shall starve our sins; sickness shall make grace more helpful (2 Corinthians 4:16). Reproach shall cause ‘the Spirit of God and of glory to rest upon us(1 Peter 4:14). Death shall stop the bottle of tears, and open the gate of Paradise. A believer’s dying day is his ascension day to glory. Hence it is, the saints have put their afflictions in the inventory of their riches (Hebrews 11:26). Themistocles being banished from his own country, grew afterwards in favour with the king of Egypt, whereupon he said, ‘I had perished, if I had not perished.’ So may a child of God say, ‘If I had not been afflicted, I had been destroyed; if my health and estate had not been lost, my soul had been lost.’
(3) See then what an encouragement here is to become godly. All things shall work for good. Oh, that this may induce the world to fall in love with religion! Can there be a greater loadstone to piety? Can anything more prevail with us to be good, than this; all things shall work for our good? Religion is the true philosopher’s stone that turns everything into gold. Take the sourest part of religion, the suffering part, and there is comfort in it. God sweetens suffering with joy; He candies our wormwood with sugar. Oh, how may this bribe us to godliness! ‘Acquaint now thyself with God, and be at peace; thereby good shall come unto thee(Job 22:21). No man did ever come off a loser by his acquaintance with God. By this, good shall come unto you, abundance of good, the sweet distillations of grace, the hidden manna, yea, everything shall work for good. Oh, then get acquaintance with God, espouse His interest.
(4) Notice the miserable condition of wicked men. To them that are godly, evil things work for good; to them that are evil, good things work for hurt.
(a) Temporal good things work for hurt to the wicked. Riches and prosperity are not benefits but snares, as Seneca speaks. Worldly things are given to the wicked, as Michal was given to David, for a snare (1 Samuel 18:21). The vulture is said to draw sickness from a perfume: so do the wicked from the sweet perfume of prosperity. Their mercies are like poisoned bread given to dogs; their tables are sumptuously spread, but there is a hook under the bait: ‘Let their table become a snare(Psalm 69:22). All their enjoyments are like Israel’s quails, which were sauced with the wrath of God (Numbers 11:33). Pride and luxury are the twins of prosperity. ‘Thou art waxen fat(Deuteronomy 32:15). Then he forsook God. Riches are not only like the spider’s web, unprofitable, but like the cockatrice’s egg, pernicious. ‘Riches kept for the hurt of the owner(Ecclesiastes 5:13). The common mercies wicked men have, are not loadstones to draw them nearer to God, but millstones to sink them deeper in hell (1 Timothy 6:9). Their delicious dainties are like Haman’s banquet; after all their lordly feasting, death will bring in the bill, and they must pay it in hell.
(b) Spiritual good things work for hurt to the wicked. From the flower of heavenly blessings they suck poison.
The ministers of God work for their hurt. The same wind that blows one ship to the haven, blows another ship upon a rock. The same breath in the ministry that blows a godly man to heaven, blows a profane sinner to hell. They who come with the word of life in their mouths, yet to many are a savour of death. ‘Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy(Isaiah 6:10). The prophet was sent upon a sad message, to preach their funeral sermon. Wicked men are worse for preaching. ‘They hate him that rebuketh in the gate(Amos 5:10). Sinners grow more resolved in sin; let God say what He will, they will do what they list. ‘As for the word which thou hast spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee(Jeremiah 44:16). The word preached is not healing, but hardening. And how dreadful is this for men to be sunk to hell with sermons!
Prayer works for their hurt. ‘The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD(Proverbs 15:8). A wicked man is in a great strait: if he prays not, he sins; if he prays, he sins, ‘Let his prayer become sin(Psalm 109:7). It were a sad judgment if all the food a man did eat should turn to ill humours, and breed diseases in the body: so it is with a wicked man. That prayer which should do him good, works for his hurt; he prays against sin, and sins against his prayer; his duties are tainted with atheism, fly-blown with hypocrisy. God abhors them.
The Lord’s Supper works for their hurt. ‘Ye cannot eat of the Lord’s table and the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?(1 Corinthians 10:21, 22). Some professors kept their idol-feasts, yet would come to the Lord’s table. The apostle says, ‘Do you provoke the Lord to wrath?’ Profane persons feast with their sins; yet will come to feast at the Lord’s table. This is to provoke God. To a sinner there is death in the cup, he ‘eats and drinks his own damnation(1 Corinthians 11:29). Thus the Lord’s Supper works for hurt to impenitent sinners. After the sop, the devil enters.
Christ Himself works for hurt to desperate sinners. He is ‘a stone of stumbling, and rock of offence(1 Peter 2:8). He is so, through the depravity of men’s hearts; for instead of believing in Him, they are offended at Him. The sun, though in its own nature pure and pleasant, yet it is hurtful to sore eyes. Jesus Christ is set for the fall, as the rising, of many (Luke 2:34). Sinners stumble at a Saviour, and pluck death from the tree of life. As chemical oils recover some patients, but destroy others, so the blood of Christ, though to some it is medicine, to others it is condemnation. Here is the unparalleled misery of such as live and die in sin. The best things work for their hurt; cordials themselves kill.
(5) See here the wisdom of God, who can make the worst things imaginable turn to the good of the saints. He can by a divine chemistry extract gold out of dross. ‘Oh the depth of the wisdom of God!(Romans 11:33). It is God’s great design to set forth the wonder of His wisdom. The Lord made Joseph’s prison a step to preferment. There was no way for Jonah to be saved, but by being swallowed up. God suffered the Egyptians to hate Israel (Psalm 106:41), and this was the means of their deliverance. The apostle Paul was bound with a chain, and that chain which did bind him was the means of enlarging the gospel (Philippians 1:12). God enriches by impoverishing; He causes the augmentation of grace by the diminution of an estate. When the creature goes further from us, it is that Christ may come nearer to us. God works strangely. He brings order out of confusion, harmony out of discord. He frequently makes use of unjust men to do that which is just. ‘He is wise in heart(Job 9:4). He can reap His glory out of men’s fury (Psalm 76:10). Either the wicked shall not do the hurt that they intend, or they shall do the good which they do not intend. God often helps when there is least hope, and saves His people in that way which they think will destroy. He made use of the high priest’s malice and Judas’ treason to redeem the world. Through indiscreet passion, we are apt to find fault with things that happen: which is as if an illiterate man should censure philosophy, or a blind man find fault with the work in a landscape. ‘Vain man would be wise(Job 11:12). Silly animals will be taxing Providence, and calling the wisdom of God to the bar of reason. God’s ways are ‘past finding out(Romans 11:33). They are rather to be admired than fathomed. There is never a providence of God, but has either a mercy or a wonder in it. How stupendous and infinite is that wisdom, that makes the most adverse dispensations work for the good of His children!
(6) Learn how little cause we have then to be discontented at outward trials and emergencies! What! Discontented at that which shall do us good! All things shall work for good. There are no sins God’s people are more subject to than unbelief and impatience. They are ready either to faint through unbelief, or to fret through impatience. When men fly out against God by discontent and impatience it is a sign they do not believe this text. Discontent is an ungrateful sin, because we have more mercies than afflictions; and it is an irrational sin, because afflictions work for good. Discontent is a sin which puts us upon sin. ‘Fret not thyself to do evil(Psalm 37:8). He that frets will be ready to do evil: fretting Jonah was sinning Jonah (Jonah 4:9). The devil blows the coals of passion and discontent, and then warms himself at the fire. Oh, let us not nourish this angry viper in our breast. Let this text produce patience, ‘All things work for good to them that love God(Romans 8:28). Shall we be discontented at that which works for our good? If one friend should throw a bag of money at another, and in throwing it, should graze his head, he would not be troubled much, seeing by this means he had got a bag of money. So the Lord may bruise us by afflictions, but it is to enrich us. These afflictions work for us a weight of glory, and shall we be discontented?
(7) See here that Scripture fulfilled, ‘God is good to Israel(Psalm 73:1). When we look upon adverse providences, and see the Lord covering His people with ashes, and ‘making them drunk with wormwood(Lamentations 3:15), we may be ready to call in question the love of God, and to say that He deals hardly with His people. But, oh no, yet God is good to Israel, because He makes all things work for good. Is not He a good God, who turns all to good? He works out sin, and works in grace; is not this good? ‘We are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world(1 Corinthians 11:32). The depth of affliction is to save us from the depth of damnation. Let us always justify God; when our outward condition is ever so bad, let us say, ‘Yet God is good.’
(8) See what cause the saints have to be frequent in the work of thanksgiving. In this Christians are defective, though they are much in supplication, yet little in gratulation. The apostle says, ‘In everything give thanks(1 Thessalonians 5:18). Why so? Because God makes everything work for our good. We thank the physician, though he gives us a bitter medicine which makes us sick, because it is to make us well, we thank any man that does us a good turn; and shall we not be thankful to God, who makes everything work for good to us? God loves a thankful Christian. Job thanked God when He took all away: ‘The LORD hath taken away, blessed be the name of the LORD(Job 1:21). Many will thank God when He gives; Job thanks Him when He takes away, because he knew God would work good out of it. We read of saints with harps in their hands (Revelation 14:2), an emblem of praise. We meet many Christians who have tears in their eyes, and complaints in their mouths: but there are few with their harps in their hands, who praise God in affliction. To be thankful in affliction is a work peculiar to a saint. Every bird can sing in spring, but some birds will sing in the dead of winter. Everyone, almost, can be thankful in prosperity, but a true saint can be thankful in adversity. A good Christian will bless God, not only at sun-rise, but at sun-set. Well may we, in the worst that befalls us, have a psalm of thankfulness, because all things work for good. Oh, be much in blessing of God: we will thank Him that doth befriend us.
(9) Think, if the worst things work for good to a believer, what shall the best things - Christ, and heaven! How much more shall these work for good! If the cross has so much good in it, what has the crown? If such precious clusters grow in Golgotha, how delicious is that fruit which grows in Canaan? If there be any sweetness in the waters of Marah, what is there in the wine of Paradise? If God’s rod has honey at the end of it, what has His golden sceptre? If the bread of affliction tastes so savoury, what is manna? What is the heavenly ambrosia? If God’s blow and stroke work for good, what shall the smiles of His face do? If temptations and sufferings have matter of joy in them, what shall glory have? If there be so much good out of evil, what then is that good where there shall be no evil? If God’s chastening mercies are so great, what will His crowning mercies be? Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
(10) Consider, that if God makes all things to turn to our good, how right is it that we should make all things tend to His glory! ‘Do all to the glory of God(1 Corinthians 10:31). The angels glorify God, they sing divine anthems of praise. How then ought man to glorify Him, for whom God has done more than for angels! He has dignified us above them in uniting our nature with the Godhead. Christ has died for us, and not the angels. The Lord has given us, not only out of the common stock of His bounty, but He has enriched us with covenant blessings, He has bestowed upon us His Spirit. He studies our welfare, He makes everything work for our good; free grace has laid a plan for our salvation. If God seeks our good, shall we not seek His glory?
Question. How can we be said properly to glorify God? He is infinite in His perfections, and can receive no augmentation from us.
Answer. It is true that in a strict sense we cannot bring glory to God, but in an evangelical sense we may. When we do what in us lies to lift up God’s name in the world, and to cause others to have high reverential thoughts of God, this the Lord interprets as a glorifying of Him; as a man is said to dishonour God, when he causes the name of God to be evil spoken of.
We are said to advance God’s glory in three ways: (1) When we aim at His glory; when we make Him the first in our thoughts, and the last in our end. As all the rivers run into the sea, and all the lines meet in the center, so all our actions terminate and center in God. (2) We advance God’s glory by being fruitful in grace. ‘Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bring forth much fruit(John 15:8). Barrenness reflects dishonour upon God. We glorify God when we grow in fairness as the lily, in tallness as the cedar, in fruitfulness as the vine. (3) We glorify God when we give the praise and glory of all we do unto God. It was an excellent and humble speech of a king of Sweden; he feared lest the people’s ascribing that glory to him which was due to God, should cause him to be removed before the work was done. When the silk worm weaves her curious work, she hides herself under the silk, and is not seen. When we have done our best, we must vanish away in our own thoughts, and transfer the glory of all to God. The apostle Paul said, ‘I laboured more abundantly than they all(1 Corinthians 15:10). One would think this speech savoured of pride; but the apostle pulls off the crown from his own head, and sets it upon the head of free grace, ‘Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.Constantine used to write the name of Christ over the door, so should we over our duties.
Thus let us endeavour to make the name of God glorious and renowned. If God seek our good, let us seek His glory. If He make all things tend to our edification, let us make all things tend to His exaltation. So much for the privilege mentioned in the text.



Chapter Four

OF LOVE TO GOD
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I proceed to the second general branch of the text. The persons interested in this privilege. They are lovers of God. ‘All things work together for good, to them that love God.’
Despisers and haters of God have no lot or part in this privilege. It is children’s bread, it belongs only to them that love God. Because love is the very heart and spirit of religion, I shall the more fully treat upon this; and for the further discussion of it, let us notice these five things concerning love to God.

1. The nature of love to God.
Love is an expansion of soul, or the inflaming of the affections, by which a Christian breathes after God as the supreme and sovereign good. Love is to the soul as the weights to the clock, it sets the soul a-going towards God, as the wings by which we fly to heaven. By love we cleave to God, as the needle to the loadstone.

2. The ground of love to God;
that is, knowledge. We cannot love that which we do not know. That our love may be drawn forth to God, we must know these three things in Him:
(1) A fullness (Colossians 1:19). He has a fullness of grace to cleanse us, and of glory to crown us; a fullness not only of sufficiency, but of redundancy. He is a sea of goodness without bottom and banks.
(2) A freeness. God has an innate propensity to dispense mercy and grace; He drops as the honeycomb. ‘Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely(Revelation 22:17). God does not require that we should bring money with us, only appetite.
(3) A propriety, or property. We must know that this fullness in God is ours. ‘This God is our God(Psalm 48:14). Here is the ground of love - His Deity, and the interest we have in Him.

3. The kinds of love
- which I shall branch into these three:
(1) There is a love of appreciation. When we set a high value upon God as being the most sublime and infinite good, we so esteem God, as that if we have Him, we do not care though we want all things else. The stars vanish when the sun appears. All creatures vanish in our thoughts when the Sun of righteousness shines in His full splendour.
(2) A love of complacency and delight -- as a man takes delight in a friend whom he loves. The soul that loves God rejoices in Him as in his treasure, and rests in Him as in his center. The heart is so set upon God that it desires no more. ‘Shew us the Father, and it sufficeth(John 14:8).
(3) A love of benevolence - which is a wishing well to the cause of God. He that is endeared in affection to his friend, wishes all happiness to him. This is to love God when we are well-wishers. We desire that His interest may prevail. Our vote and prayer is that His name may be had in honour; that His gospel. which is the rod of His strength, may, like Aaron’s rod, blossom and bring forth fruit.

4. The properties of love.
(1) Our love to God must be entire, and that, in regard of the subject, it must be with the whole heart. ‘Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart(Mark 12:30). In the old law, a high priest was not to marry with a widow, nor with a harlot - not with a widow, because he had not her first love; nor with a harlot, because he had not all her love. God will have the whole heart. ‘Their heart is divided(Hosea 10:2). The true mother would not have the child divided; and God will not have the heart divided. God will not be an inmate, to have only one room in the heart, and all the other rooms let out to sin. It must be an entire love.
(2) It must be a sincere love. ‘Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus in sincerity(Ephesians 6:24). Sincere; it alludes to honey that is quite pure. Our love to God is sincere, when it is pure and without self-interest: this the school-men call a love of friendship. We must love Christ, as Augustine says, for Himself: as we love sweet wine for its taste. God’s beauty and love must be the two loadstones to draw our love to Him. Alexander had two friends, Hephestion and Craterus, of whom he said, ‘Hephestion loves me because I am Alexander; Craterus loves me because I am king Alexander.’ The one loved his person, the other loved his gifts. Many love God because He gives them corn and wine, and not for His intrinsic excellencies. We must love God more for what He is, than for what He bestows. True love is not mercenary. You need not hire a mother to love her child: a soul deeply in love with God needs not be hired by rewards. It cannot but love Him for that lustre of beauty that sparkles forth in Him.
(3) It must be a fervent love. The Hebrew word for love signifies ardency of affection. Saints must be seraphim, burning in holy love. To love one coldly, is the same as not to love him. The sun shines as hot as it can. Our love to God must be intense and vehement; like coals of juniper, which are most acute and fervent (Psalm 120:4). Our love to transitory things must be indifferent; we must love as if we loved not (1 Corinthians 7:30). But our love to God must flame forth. The spouse was sick of love to Christ (Song of Solomon 2:5). We can never love God as He deserves. As God’s punishing us is less than we deserve (Ezra 9:13), so our loving Him is less than He deserves.
(4) Love to God must be active. It is like fire, which is the most active element; it is called the labour of love (1 Thessalonians 1:3). Love is no idle grace; it sets the head a studying for God, the feet a running in the ways of His commandments. ‘The love of Christ constrains(2 Corinthians 5:14). pretenses of love are insufficient. True love is not only seen at the tongue’s end, but at the finger’s end; it is the labour of love. The living creatures, mentioned in Ezekiel 1:8, had wings - an emblem of a good Christian. He has not only the wings of faith to fly, but hands under his wings: he works by love, he spends and is spent for Christ.
(5) Love is liberal. It has love tokens to bestow (1 Corinthians 13:4). Charity is kind. Love has not only a smooth tongue, but a kind heart. David’s heart was fired with love to God, and he would not offer that to God which cost him nothing (2 Samuel 24:24). Love is not only full of benevolence, but beneficence. Love which enlarges the heart, never straitens the hand. He that loves Christ, will be liberal to His members. He will be eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. The backs and bellies of the poor shall be the furrows where he sows the golden seeds of liberality. Some say they love God, but their love is lame of one hand, they give nothing to good uses. Indeed faith deals with invisibles, but God hates that love which is invisible. Love is like new wine, which will have vent; it vents itself in good works. The apostle speaks it in honour of the Macedonians, that they gave to the poor saints, not only up to, but beyond their power (2 Corinthians 8:3). Love is bred at court, it is a noble munificent grace.
(6) Love to God is peculiar. He who is a lover of God gives Him such a love as he bestows upon none else. As God gives His children such a love as He does not bestow upon the wicked - electing, adopting love; so a gracious heart gives to God such a special distinguishing love as none else can share in. ‘I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ(2 Corinthians 11:2). A wife espoused to one husband gives him such a love as she has for none else; she does not part with her conjugal love to any but her husband. So a saint espoused to Christ gives Him a peculiarity of love, a love incommunicable to any other, namely, a love joined with adoration. Not only the love is given to God, but the soul. ‘A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse(Song of Solomon 4:12). The heart of a believer is Christ’s garden. The flower growing in it is love mixed with divine worship, and this flower is for the use of Christ alone. The spouse keeps the key of the garden, that none may come there but Christ.
(7) Love to God is permanent. It is like the fire the vestal virgins kept at Rome, it does not go out. True love boils over, but does not give over. Love to God, as it is sincere without hypocrisy, so it is constant without apostasy. Love is like the pulse of the body, always beating; it is not a land, but a spring flood. As wicked men are constant in love to their sins, neither shame, nor sickness, nor fear of hell, will make them give over their sins; so, nothing can hinder a Christian’s love to God. Nothing can conquer love, not any difficulties, or oppositions. ‘Love is strong as the grave(Song of Solomon 8:6). The grave swallows up the strongest bodies: so love swallows up the strongest difficulties. ‘Many waters cannot quench love(Song of Solomon 8:7). Neither the sweet waters of pleasure, nor the bitter waters of persecution! Love to God abides firm to death. ‘Being rooted and grounded in love(Ephesians 3:17). Light things, as chaff and feathers, are quickly blown away, but a tree that is rooted abides the storm; he that is rooted in love, endures. True love never ends, but with the life.

5. The degree of love.
We must love God above all other objects. ‘There is nothing on earth that I desire beside thee(Psalm 73:25). God is the quintessence of all good things, He is superlatively good. The soul seeing a super-eminency in God, and admiring in Him that constellation of all excellencies, is carried out in love to Him in the highest degree. The measure of our love to God, says Bernard, must be to love Him without measure. God, who is the chief of our happiness, must have the chief of our affections. The creature may have the milk of our love, but God must have the cream. Love to God must be above all other things, as the oil swims above the water.
We must love God more than relations. As in the case of Abraham’s offering up Isaac; Isaac being the son of his old age, no question he loved him entirely, and doted on him; but when God said, ‘Abraham, offer up thy son(Genesis 22:2), though it were a thing which might seem, not only to oppose his reason, but his faith, for the Messiah was to come of Isaac, and if he be cut off, where shall the world have a Mediator! Yet such was the strength of Abraham’s faith and ardency of his love to God, that he will take the sacrificing knife, to let out Isaac’s blood. Our blessed Saviour speaks of hating father and mother (Luke 14:26). Christ would not have us be unnatural; but if our dearest relations stand in our way, and would keep us from Christ, either we must step over them, or know them not (Deuteronomy 33:9). Though some drops of love may run beside to our kindred and alliance, yet the full torrent must run out after Christ. Relations may lie on the bosom, but Christ must lie in the heart.
We must love God more than our estate. ‘Ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods(Hebrews 10:34). They were glad they had anything to lose for Christ. If the world be laid in one scale, and Christ in the other, He must weigh heaviest. And is it thus? Has God the highest room in our affections? Plutarch says, ‘When a dictator was created in Rome, all other authority was for the time suspended’: so when the love of God bears sway in the heart, all other love is suspended, and is as nothing in comparison of this love.

Use. A sharp reproof to those who do not love God.
This may serve for a sharp reproof to such as have not a dram of love to God in their hearts - and are there such miscreants alive? He who does not love God is a beast with a man’s head. Oh wretch! Do you live upon God every day, yet not love Him? If one had a friend that supplied him continually with money, and gave him all his allowance, were not he worse than a barbarian, who did not respect and honour that friend? Such a friend is God: He gives you your breath, He bestows a livelihood upon you, and will you not love Him? You will love your prince if he saves your life, and will you not love God who gives you your life? What loadstone so powerful to draw love, as the blessed Deity? He is blind whom beauty does not tempt, he is sottish who is not drawn with the cords of love. When the body is cold and has no heat in it, it is a sign of death: that man is dead who has no heat of love in his soul to God. How can he expect love from God, who shows no love to Him? Will God ever lay such a viper in His bosom, as casts forth the poison of malice and enmity against Him?
This reproof falls heavy upon the infidels of this age, who are so far from loving God, that they do all they can to show their hatred of Him. ‘They declare their sin as Sodom(Isaiah 3:9). ‘They set their mouth against the heavens(Psalm 73:9), in pride and blasphemy, and bid open defiance to God. These are monsters in nature, devils in the shape of men. Let them read their doom: ‘If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema-maranatha(1 Corinthians 16:22), that is, let him be accursed from God, till Christ’s coming to judgment. Let him be heir to a curse while he lives, and at the dreadful day of the Lord, let him hear that heart-rending sentence pronounced against him, ‘Depart, ye cursed.



Chapter Five

THE TESTS OF LOVE TO GOD
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Let us test ourselves impartially whether we are in the number of those that love God. For the deciding of this, as our love will be best seen by the fruits of it, I shall lay down fourteen signs, or fruits, of love to God, and it concerns us to search carefully whether any of these fruits grow in our garden.

1. The first fruit of love is the musing of the mind upon God.
He who is in love, his thoughts are ever upon the object. He who loves God is ravished and transported with the contemplation of God. ‘When I awake, I am still with thee(Psalm 139:18). The thoughts are as travellers in the mind. David’s thoughts kept heaven-road, I am still with Thee. God is the treasure, and where the treasure is, there is the heart. By this we may test our love to God. What are our thoughts most upon? Can we say we are ravished with delight when we think on God? Have our thoughts got wings? Are they fled aloft? Do we contemplate Christ and glory? Oh, how far are they from being lovers of God, who scarcely ever think of God! ‘God is not in all his thoughts(Psalm 10:4). A sinner crowds God out of his thoughts. He never thinks of God, unless with horror, as the prisoner thinks of the judge.

2. The next fruit of love is desire of communion.
Love desires familiarity and intercourse. ‘My heart and flesh crieth out for the living God(Psalm 84:2). King David being debarred the house of God where was the tabernacle, the visible token of His presence, he breathes after God, and in a holy pathos of desire cries out for the living God. Lovers would be conversing together. If we love God we prize His ordinances, because there we meet with God. He speaks to us in His Word, and we speak to Him in prayer. By this let us examine our love to God. Do we desire intimacy of communion with God? Lovers cannot be long away from each other. Such as love God have a holy affection, they know not how to be from Him. They can bear the want of anything but God’s presence. They can do without health and friends, they can be happy without a full table, but they cannot be happy without God. ‘Hide not thy face from me, lest I be like them that go down into the grave(Psalm 143:7). Lovers have their fainting-fits. David was ready to faint away and die, when he had not a sight of God. They who love God cannot be contented with having ordinances, unless they may enjoy God in them; that were to lick the glass, and not the honey.
What shall we say to those who can be all their lives long without God? They think God may be best spared: they complain they want health and trading, but not that they want God! Wicked men are not acquainted with God: and how can they love, who are not acquainted! Nay, which is worse, they do not desire to be acquainted with Him. ‘They say to God, Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways(Job 21:14). Sinners shun acquaintance with God, they count His presence a burden; and are these lovers of God? Does that woman love her husband, who cannot endure to be in his presence?

3. Another fruit of love is grief.
Where there is love to God, there is a grieving for our sins of unkindness against Him. A child which loves his father cannot but weep for offending him. The heart that burns in love melts in tears. Oh! that I should abuse the love of so dear a Saviour! Did not my Lord suffer enough upon the cross, but must I make Him suffer more? Shall I give Him more gall and vinegar to drink? How disloyal and disingenuous have I been! How have I grieved His Spirit, trampled upon His royal commands, slighted His blood! This opens a vein of godly sorrow, and makes the heart bleed afresh. ‘Peter went out, and wept bitterly(Matthew 26:75). When Peter thought how dearly Christ loved him; how he was taken up into the mount of transfiguration, where Christ showed him the glory of heaven in a vision; that he should deny Christ after he had received such signal love from Him, this broke his heart with grief: he went out, and wept bitterly.
By this let us test our love to God. Do we shed the tears of godly sorrow? Do we grieve for our unkindness against God, our abuse of mercy, our non-improvement of talents? How far are they from loving God, who sin daily, and their hearts never smite them! They have a sea of sin, and not a drop of sorrow. They are so far from being troubled that they make merry with their sins. ‘When thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest(Jeremiah 11:15). Oh wretch! Did Christ bleed for sin, and do you laugh at it? These are far from loving God. Does he love his friend that loves to do him an injury?

4. Another fruit of love is magnanimity.
Love is valorous, it turns cowardice into courage. Love will make one venture upon the greatest difficulties and hazards. The fearful hen will fly upon a dog or serpent to defend her young ones. Love infuses a spirit of gallantry and fortitude into a Christian. He that loves God will stand up in His cause, and be an advocate for Him. ‘We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard(Acts 4:20). He who is afraid to own Christ has but little love to Him. Nicodemus came sneaking to Christ by night (John 3:2). He was fearful of being seen with Him in the day time. Love casts out fear. As the sun expels fogs and vapours, so divine love in a great measure expels carnal fear. Does he love God that can hear His blessed truths spoken against and be silent? He who loves his friend will stand up for him, and vindicate him when he is reproached. Does Christ appear for us in heaven, and are we afraid to appear for Him on earth? Love animates a Christian, it fires his heart with zeal, and steels it with courage.

5. The fifth fruit of love is sensitiveness.
If we love God, our hearts ache for the dishonour done to God by wicked men. To see, not only the banks of religion, but morality, broken down, and a flood of wickedness coming in; to see God’s sabbaths profaned, His oaths violated, His name dishonoured; if there be any love to God in us, we shall lay these things to heart. Lot’s righteous soul was ‘vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked(2 Peter 2:7). The sins of Sodom were as so many spears to pierce his soul. How far are they from loving God, who are not at all affected with His dishonour? If they have but peace and trading, they lay nothing to heart. A man who is dead drunk, never minds nor is affected by it, though another be bleeding to death by him; so, many, being drunk with the wine of prosperity, when the honour of God is wounded and His truths lie a bleeding, are not affected by it. Did men love God, they would grieve to see His glory suffer, and religion itself become a martyr.

6. The sixth fruit of love is hatred against sin.
Fire purges the dross from the metal. The fire of love purges out sin. ‘Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols!(Hosea 14:8). He that loves God will have nothing to do with sin, unless to give battle to it. Sin strikes not only at God’s honour, but His being. Does he love his prince that harbours him who is a traitor to the crown? Is he a friend to God who loves that which God hates? The love of God and the love of sin cannot dwell together. The affections cannot be carried to two contrarieties at the same time. A man cannot love health and love poison too; so one cannot love God and sin too. He who has any secret sin in his heart allowed, is as far from loving God as heaven and earth are distant one from the other.

7. Another fruit of love is crucifixion.
He who is a lover of God is dead to the world. ‘I am crucified to the world(Galatians 6:14). I am dead to the honours and pleasures of it. He who is in love with God is not much in love with anything else. The love of God, and ardent love of the world, are inconsistent. ‘If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him(1 John 2:15). Love to God swallows up all other love, as Moses’ rod swallowed up the Egyptian rods. If a man could live in the sun, what a small point would all the earth be; so when a man’s heart is raised above the world in the admiring and loving of God, how poor and slender are these things below! They seem as nothing in his eye. It was a sign the early Christians loved God, because their property did not lie near their hearts; but they ‘laid down their money at the apostles’ feet(Acts 4:35).
Test your love to God by this. What shall we think of such as have never enough of the world? They have the dropsy of covetousness, thirsting insatiably after riches: ‘That pant after the dust of the earth(Amos 2:7). Never talk of your love to Christ, says Ignatius, when you prefer the world before the Pearl of price; and are there not many such, who prize their gold above God? If they have a south land, they care not for the water of life. They will sell Christ and a good conscience for money. Will God ever bestow heaven upon them who so basely undervalue Him, preferring glittering dust before the glorious Deity? What is there in the earth that we should so set our hearts upon it? Only the devil makes us look upon it through a magnifying glass. The world has no real intrinsic worth, it is but paint and deception.

8. The next fruit of love is fear.
In the godly love and fear do kiss each other. There is a double fear arises from love.
(1) A fear of displeasing. The spouse loves her husband, therefore will rather deny herself than displease him. The more we love God, the more fearful we are of grieving His Spirit. ‘How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?(Genesis 39:9). When Eudoxia, the empress, threatened to banish Chrysostom; Tell her (said he) I fear nothing but sin. That is a blessed love which puts a Christian into a hot fit of zeal, and a cold fit of fear, making him shake and tremble, and not dare willingly to offend God.
(2) A fear mixed with jealousy. ‘Eli’s heart trembled for the ark(1 Samuel 4:13). It is not said, his heart trembled for Hophni and Phinehas, his two sons, but his heart trembled for the ark, because if the ark were taken, then the glory was departed. He that loves God is full of fear lest it should go ill with the church. He fears lest profaneness (which is the plague of leprosy) should increase, lest popery get a footing, lest God should go from His people. The presence of God in His ordinances is the beauty and strength of a nation. So long as God’s presence is with a people, so long they are safe; but the soul inflamed with love to God fears lest the visible tokens of God’s presence should be removed.
By this touchstone let us test our love to God. Many fear lest peace and trading go, but not lest God and His gospel go. Are these lovers of God? He who loves God is more afraid of the loss of spiritual blessings than temporal. If the Sun of righteousness remove out of our horizon, what can follow but darkness? What comfort can an organ or anthem give if the gospel be gone? Is it not like the sound of a trumpet or a volley of shot at a funeral?

9. If we are lovers of God, we love what God loves.
(1) We love God’s Word. David esteemed the Word, for the sweetness of it, above honey (Psalm 119:103), and for the value of it, above gold (Psalm 119:72). The lines of Scripture are richer than the mines of gold. Well may we love the Word; it is the load-star that directs us to heaven, it is the field in which the Pearl is hid. That man who does not love the Word, but thinks it too strict and could wish any part of the Bible torn out (as an adulterer did the seventh commandment), he has not the least spark of love in his heart.
(2) We love God’s day. We do not only keep a sabbath, but love a sabbath. ‘If thou call the sabbath a delight(Isaiah 58:13). The sabbath is that which keeps up the face of religion amongst us; this day must be consecrated as glorious to the Lord. The house of God is the palace of the great King, on the sabbath God shows Himself there through the lattice. If we love God we prize His day above all other days. All the week would be dark if it were not for this day; on this day manna falls double. Now, if ever, heaven gate stands open, and God comes down in a golden shower. This blessed day the Sun of righteousness rises upon the soul. How does a gracious heart prize that day which was made on purpose to enjoy God in!
(3) We love God’s laws. A gracious soul is glad of the law because it checks his sinful excesses. The heart would be ready to run wild in sin if it had not some blessed restraints put upon it by the law of God. He that loves God loves His law - the law of repentance, the law of self-denial. Many say they love God but they hate His laws. ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us(Psalm 2:3). God’s precepts are compared to cords, they bind men to their good behaviour; but the wicked think these cords too tight, therefore they say, Let us break them. They pretend to love Christ as a Saviour, but hate Him as a King. Christ tells us of His yoke (Matthew 11:29). Sinners would have Christ put a crown upon their head, but not a yoke upon their neck. He were a strange king that should rule without laws.
(4) We love God’s picture, we love His image shining in the saints. ‘He that loves Him that begat, loves him also that is begotten of him(1 John 5:1). It is possible to love a saint, yet not to love him as a saint; we may love him for something else, for his ingenuity, or because he is affable and bountiful. A beast loves a man, but not as he is a man, but because he feeds him, and gives him provender. But to love a saint as he is a saint, this is a sign of love to God. If we love a saint for his saintship, as having something of God in him, then we love him in these four cases.
(a) We love a saint, though he be poor. A man that loves gold, loves a piece of gold, though it be in a rag: so, though a saint be in rags, we love him, because there is something of Christ in him.
(b) We love a saint, though he has many personal failings. There is no perfection here. In some, rash anger prevails; in some, inconstancy; in some, too much love of the world. A saint in this life is like gold in the ore, much dross of infirmity cleaves to him, yet we love him for the grace that is in him. A saint is like a fair face with a scar: we love the beautiful face of holiness, though there be a scar in it. The best emerald has its blemishes, the brightest stars their twinklings, and the best of the saints have their failings. You that cannot love another because of his infirmities, how would you have God love you?
(c) We love the saints though in some lesser things they differ from us. Perhaps another Christian has not so much light as you, and that may make him err in some things; will you presently unsaint him because he cannot come up to your light? Where there is union in fundamentals, there ought to be union in affections.
(d) We love the saints, though they are persecuted. We love precious metal, though it be in the furnace. The apostle Paul did bear in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus (Galatians 6:17). Those marks were, like the soldier’s scars, honourable. We must love a saint as well in chains as in scarlet. If we love Christ, we love His persecuted members.
If this be love to God, when we love His image sparkling in the saints, oh then, how few lovers of God are to be found! Do they love God, who hate them that are like God? Do they love Christ’s person, who are filled with a spirit of revenge against His people? How can that wife be said to love her husband, who tears his picture? Surely Judas and Julian are not yet dead, their spirit yet lives in the world. Who are guilty but the innocent! What greater crime than holiness, if the devil may be one of the grand jury! Wicked men seem to bear great reverence to the saints departed; they canonize dead saints, but persecute living. In vain do men stand up at the creed, and tell the world they believe in God, when they abominate one of the articles of the creed, namely, the communion of saints. Surely, there is not a greater sign of a man ripe for hell, than this, not only to lack grace, but to hate it.

10. Another blessed sign of love is, to entertain good thoughts of God.
He that loves his friend construes what his friend does, in the best sense. ‘Love thinketh no evil(1 Corinthians 13:5). Malice interprets all in the worst sense; love interprets all in the best sense. It is an excellent commentator upon providence; it thinks no evil. He that loves God, has a good opinion of God; though He afflicts sharply, the soul takes all well. This is the language of a gracious spirit: ‘My God sees what a hard heart I have, therefore He drives in one wedge of affliction after another, to break my heart. He knows how full I am of bad humours, how sick of a pleurisy, therefore He lets blood, to save my life. This severe dispensation is either to mortify some corruption, or to exercise some grace. How good is God, that will not let me alone in my sins, but smites my body to save my soul!’ Thus he that loves God takes everything in good part. Love puts a candid gloss upon all God’s actions. You who are apt to murmur at God, as if He had dealt ill with you, be humbled for this; say thus with yourself, ‘If I loved God more, I should have better thoughts of God.’ It is Satan that makes us have good thoughts of ourselves, and hard thoughts of God. Love takes all in the fairest sense; it thinketh no evil.

11. Another fruit of love is obedience.
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me(John 14:21). It is a vain thing to say we love Christ’s person, if we slight His commands. Does that child love his father, who refuses to obey him? If we love God, we shall obey Him in those things which cross flesh and blood. (a) In things difficult, and (b) In things dangerous.
(a) In things difficult. As, in mortifying sin. There are some sins which are not only near to us as the garment, but dear to us as the eye. If we love God, we shall set ourselves against these, both in purpose and practice. Also, in forgiving our enemies. God commands us upon pain of death to forgive. ‘Forgive one another(Ephesians 4:32). This is hard; it is crossing the stream. We are apt to forget kindnesses, and remember injuries; but if we love God, we shall pass by offenses. When we seriously consider how many talents God has forgiven us, how many affronts and provocations He has put up with at our hands; this makes us write after His copy, and endeavour rather to bury an injury than to retaliate it.
(b) In things dangerous. When God calls us to suffer for Him, we shall obey. Love made Christ suffer for us, love was the chain that fastened Him to the cross; so, if we love God, we shall be willing to suffer for Him. Love has a strange quality, it is the least suffering grace, and yet it is the most suffering grace. It is the least suffering grace in one sense; it will not suffer known sin to lie in the soul unrepented of, it will not suffer abuses and dishonours done to God; thus it is the least suffering grace. Yet it is the most suffering grace; it will suffer reproaches, bonds, and imprisonments, for Christ’s sake. ‘I am ready not only to be bound, but to die, for the name of the Lord Jesus(Acts 21:13). It is true that every Christian is not a martyr, but he has the spirit of martyrdom in him. He says as Paul, ‘I am ready to be bound’; he has a disposition of mind to suffer, if God call. Love will carry men out above their own strength. Tertullian observes how much the heathen suffered for love to their country. If the spring-head of nature rises so high, surely grace will rise higher. If love to their country will make men suffer, much more should love to Christ. ‘Love endureth all things(1 Corinthians 13:7). Basil speaks of a virgin condemned to the fire, who having her life and estate offered her if she would fall down to the idol, answered, ‘Let life and money go, welcome Christ.’ It was a noble and zealous speech of Ignatius, ‘Let me be ground with the teeth of wild beasts, if I may be God’s pure wheat.’ How did divine affection carry the early saints above the love of life, and the fear of death! Stephen was stoned, Luke hanged on an olive tree, Peter crucified at Jerusalem with his head downwards. These divine heroes were willing to suffer, rather than by their cowardice to make the name of God suffer. How did Paul prize his chain that he wore for Christ! He gloried in it, as a woman that is proud of her jewels, says Chrysostom. And holy Ignatius wore his fetters as a bracelet of diamonds. ‘Not accepting deliverance(Hebrews 11:35). They refused to come out of prison on sinful terms, they preferred their innocency before their liberty.
By this let us test our love to God. Have we the spirit of martyrdom? Many say they love God, but how does it appear? They will not forego the least comfort, or undergo the least cross for His sake. If Jesus Christ should have said to us, ‘I love you well, you are dear to me, but I cannot suffer, I cannot lay down my life for you,’ we should have questioned His love very much; and may not Christ suspect us, when we pretend to love Him, and yet will endure nothing for Him?

12. He who loves God will endeavour to make Him appear glorious in the eyes of others.
Such as are in love will be commending and setting forth the amiableness of those persons whom they love. If we love God, we shall spread abroad His excellences, that so we may raise His fame and esteem, and may induce others to fall in love with Him. Love cannot be silent; we shall be as so many trumpets, sounding forth the freeness of God’s grace, the transcendency of His love, and the glory of His kingdom. Love is like fire: where it burns in the heart, it will break forth at the lips. It will be elegant in setting forth God’s praise: love must have vent.

13. Another fruit of love is to long for Christ’s appearing.
Henceforth there is a crown of righteousness laid up for me, and not for me only, but for them also which love Christ’s appearing(2 Timothy 4:8). Love desires union; Aristotle gives the reason, because joy flows upon union. When our union with Christ is perfect in glory, then our joy will be full. He that loves Christ loves His appearing. Christ’s appearing will be a happy appearing to the saints. His appearing now is very comforting, when He appears for us as an Advocate (Hebrews 9:24). But the other appearing will be infinitely more so, when He shall appear for us as our Husband. He will at that day bestow two jewels upon us. His love; a love so great and astonishing, that it is better felt than expressed. And His likeness. ‘When he shall appear, we shall be like him(1 John 3:2). And from both these, love and likeness, infinite joy will flow into the soul. No wonder then that he who loves Christ longs for His appearance. ‘The Spirit and the bride say come; even so come, Lord Jesus(Revelation 22:17, 20). By this let us test our love to Christ. A wicked man who is self-condemned, is afraid of Christ’s appearing, and wishes He would never appear; but such as love Christ, are joyful to think of His coming in the clouds. They shall then be delivered from all their sins and fears, they shall be acquitted before men and angels, and shall be for ever translated into the paradise of God.

14. Love will make us stoop to the meanest offices.
Love is a humble grace, it does not walk abroad in state, it will creep upon its hands, it will stoop and submit to anything whereby it may be serviceable to Christ. As we see in Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus, both of them honourable persons, yet one takes down Christ’s body with his own hands, and the other embalms it with sweet odours. It might seem much for persons of their rank to be employed in that service, but love made them do it. If we love God, we shall not think any work too mean for us, by which we may be helpful to Christ’s members. Love is not squeamish; it will visit the sick, relieve the poor, wash the saints’ wounds. The mother that loves her child is not coy and nice; she will do those things for her child which others would scorn to do. He who loves God will humble himself to the meanest office of love to Christ and His members.
These are the fruits of love to God. Happy are they who can find these fruits, so foreign to their natures, growing in their souls.



Chapter Six

AN EXHORTATION TO LOVE GOD
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1. An exhortation.
Let me earnestly persuade all who bear the name of Christians to become lovers of God. ‘O love the LORD, all ye his saints(Psalm 31:23). There are but few that love God: many give Him hypocritical kisses, but few love Him. It is not so easy to love God as most imagine. The affection of love is natural, but the grace is not. Men are by nature haters of God (Romans 1:30). The wicked would flee from God; they would neither be under His rules, nor within His reach. They fear God, but do not love Him. All the strength in men or angels cannot make the heart love God. Ordinances will not do it of themselves, nor judgments; it is only the almighty and invincible power of the Spirit of God can infuse love into the soul. This being so hard a work, it calls upon us for the more earnest prayer and endeavour after this angelic grace of love. To excite and inflame our desires after it, I shall prescribe twenty motives for loving God.
(1) Without this, all our religion is vain. It is not duty, but love to duty, God looks at. It is not how much we do, but how much we love. If a servant does not do his work willingly, and out of love, it is not acceptable. Duties not mingled with love, are as burdensome to God as they are to us. David therefore counsels his son Solomon to serve God with a willing mind (1 Chronicles 28:9). To do duty without love, is not sacrifice, but penance.
(2) Love is the most noble and excellent grace. It is a pure flame kindled from heaven; by it we resemble God, who is love. Believing and obeying do not make us like God, but by love we grow like Him (1 John 4:16). Love is a grace which most delights in God, and is most delightful to Him. That disciple who was most full of love, lay in Christ’s bosom. Love puts a verdure and lustre upon all the graces: the graces seem to be eclipsed, unless love shine and sparkle in them. Faith is not true, unless it works by love. The waters of repentance are not pure, unless they flow from the spring of love. Love is the incense which makes all our services fragrant and acceptable to God.
(3) Is that unreasonable which God requires? It is but our love. If He should ask our estate, or the fruit of our bodies, could we deny Him? But He asks only our love: He would only pick this flower. Is this a hard request? Was there ever any debt so easily paid as this? We do not at all impoverish ourselves by paying it. Love is no burden. Is it any labour for the bride to love her husband? Love is delightful.
(4) God is the most adequate and complete object of our love. All the excellencies that lie scattered in the creatures, are united in Him. He is wisdom, beauty, love, yea, the very essence of goodness. There is nothing in God can cause a loathing; the creature sooner surfeits than satisfies, but there are fresh beauties sparkling forth in God. The more we enjoy of Him, the more we are ravished with delight.
There is nothing in God to deaden our affections or quench our love; no infirmity, no deformity, such as usually weaken and cool love. There is that excellence in God, which may not only invite, but command our love. If there were more angels in heaven than there are, and all those glorious seraphim had an immense flame of love burning in their breasts to eternity, yet could they not love God equivalently to that infinite perfection and transcendence of goodness which is in Him. Surely then here is enough to induce us to love God - we cannot spend our love upon a better object.
(5) Love facilitates religion. It oils the wheels of the affections, and makes them more lively and cheerful in God’s service. Love takes off the tediousness of duty. Jacob thought seven years but little, for the love he bore to Rachel. Love makes duty a pleasure. Why are the angels so swift and winged in God’s service? It is because they love Him. Love is never weary. He that loves God, is never weary of telling it. He that loves God, is never weary of serving Him.
(6) God desires our love. We have lost our beauty, and stained our blood, yet the King of heaven is a suitor to us. What is there in our love, that God should seek it? What is God the better for our love? He does not need it, He is infinitely blessed in Himself. If we deny Him our love, He has more sublime creatures who pay the cheerful tribute of love to Him. God does not need our love, yet He seeks it.
(7) God has deserved our love; how has He loved us! Our affections should be kindled at the fire of God’s love. What a miracle of love is it, that God should love us, when there was nothing lovely in us. ‘When thou wast in thy blood, I said unto thee, Live(Ezekiel 16:6). The time of our loathing was the time of God’s loving. We had something in us to provoke fury, but nothing to excite love. What love, passing understanding, was it, to give Christ to us! That Christ should die for sinners! God has set all the angels in heaven wondering at this love. Augustine says, ‘The cross is a pulpit, and the lesson Christ preached on it is love.’ Oh the living love of a dying Saviour! I think I see Christ upon the cross bleeding all over! I think I hear Him say to us, ‘Reach hither your hands. Put them into My sides. Feel My bleeding heart. See if I do not love you. And will you not bestow your love upon me? Will you love the world more than me? Did the world appease the wrath of God for you? Have I not done all this? And will you not love me?’ It is natural to love where we are loved. Christ having set us a copy of love, and written it with His blood, let us labour to write after so fair a copy, and to imitate Him in love.
(8) Love to God is the best self-love. It is self-love to get the soul saved; by loving God, we forward our own salvation. ‘He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him(1 John 4:16). And he is sure to dwell with God in heaven, that has God dwelling in his heart. So that to love God is the truest self-love; he that does not love God, does not love himself.
(9) Love to God evidences sincerity. ‘The upright love thee(Song of Solomon 1:4). Many a child of God fears he is a hypocrite. Do you love God? When Peter was dejected with the sense of his sin, he thought himself unworthy that ever Christ should take notice of him, or employ him more in the work of his apostleship; see how Christ goes about to comfort him. ‘Peter, lovest thou me?(John 21:15). As if Christ had said, ‘Though thou hast denied me through fear, yet if thou canst say from thy heart thou lovest me, thou art sincere and upright.’ To love God is a better sign of sincerity than to fear Him. The Israelites feared God’s justice. ‘When he slew them, they sought him, and inquired early after God(Psalm 78:34). But what did all this come to? ‘Nevertheless, they did but flatter him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue; for their heart was not right with him(verses 36, 37). That repentance is no better than flattery, which arises only from fear of God’s judgments, and has no love mixed with it. Loving God evidences that God has the heart; and if the heart be His, that will command all the rest.
(10) By our love to God, we may conclude God’s love to us. ‘We love him, because he first loved us(1 John 4:19). Oh, says the soul, if I knew God loved me, I could rejoice! Do you love God? Then you may be sure of God’s love to you. As it is with burning glasses; if the glass burn, it is because the sun has first shined upon it, else it could not burn; so if our hearts burn in love to God, it is because God’s love has first shined upon us, else we could not burn in love. Our love is nothing but the reflection of God’s love.
(11) If you do not love God, you will love something else, either the world or sin; and are those worthy of your love? Is it not better to love God than these? It is better to love God than the world, as appears in the following particulars.
If you set your love on worldly things, they will not satisfy. You may as well satisfy your body with air, as your soul with earth. ‘In the fullness of his sufficiency, he shall be in straits(Job 20:22). Plenty has its penury. If the globe of the world were yours, it would not fill your soul. And will you set your love on that which will never give you contentment? Is it not better to love God? He will give you that which shall satisfy. ‘When I awake, I shall be satisfied with thy likeness(Psalm 17:15). When I awake out of the sleep of death, and shall have some of the rays and beams of God’s glory put upon me, I shall then be satisfied with His likeness.
If you love worldly things, they cannot remove trouble of mind. If there be a thorn in the conscience, all the world cannot pluck it out. King Saul, being perplexed in mind, all his crown jewels could not comfort him (1 Samuel 28:15). But if you love God, He can give you peace when nothing else can; He can turn the ‘shadow of death into the morning(Amos 5:8). He can apply Christ’s blood to refresh your soul; He can whisper His love by the Spirit, and with one smile scatter all your fears and disquiets.
If you love the world, you love that which may keep you out of heaven. Worldly contentments may be compared to the wagons in an army; while the soldiers have been victualling themselves at the wagons, they have lost the battle. ‘How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!(Mark 10:23). Prosperity, to many, is like the sail to the boat, which quickly overturns it; so that by loving the world, you love that which will endanger you. But if you love God, there is no fear of losing heaven. He will be a Rock to hide you, but not to hurt you. By loving Him, we come to enjoy Him.
You may love worldly things, but they cannot love you in return. You love gold and silver, but your gold cannot love you in return. You love a picture, but the picture cannot love you in return. You give away your love to the creature, and receive no love back. But if you love God, He will love you in return. ‘If any man love me, my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him(John 14:23). God will not be behind-hand in love to us: for our drop, we shall receive an ocean.
When you love the world, you love that which is worse than yourselves. The soul, as Damascen says, is a sparkle of celestial brightness; it carries in it an idea and resemblance of God. While you love the world, you love that which is infinitely below the worth of your souls. Will any one lay out cost upon sackcloth? When you lay out your love upon the world, you hang a pearl upon a swine, you love that which is inferior to yourself. As Christ speaks in another sense of the fowls of the air, ‘Are ye not much better than they?(Matthew 6:26), so I say of worldly things, Are ye not much better than they? You love a fair house, a beautiful picture; are you not much better than they? But if you love God, you place your love on the most noble and sublime object: you love that which is better than yourselves. God is better than the soul, better than angels, better than heaven.
You may love the world, and have hatred for your love. ‘Because you are not of the world, therefore the world hateth you(John 15:19). Would it not vex one to lay out money upon a piece of ground which, instead of bringing forth corn or grapes, should yield nothing but nettles? Thus it is with all sublunary things: we love them, and they prove nettles to sting. We meet with nothing but disappointment. ‘Let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon(Judges 9:15). While we love the creature, fire comes out of this bramble to devour us; but if we love God, He will not return hatred for love. ‘I love them that love me(Proverbs 8:17). God may chastise, but He cannot hate. Every believer is part of Christ, and God can as well hate Christ as hate a believer.
You may over-love the creature. You may love wine too much, and silver too much; but you cannot love God too much. If it were possible to exceed, excess here were a virtue; but it is our sin that we cannot love God enough. ‘How weak is thy heart!(Ezekiel 16:30). So it may be said, How weak is our love to God! It is like water of the last drawing from the still, which has less spirit in it. If we could love God far more than we do, yet it were not proportionate to His worth; so that there is no danger of excess in our love to God.
You may love worldly things, and they die and leave you. Riches take wings, relations drop away. There is nothing here abiding; the creature has a little honey in its mouth, but it has wings, it will soon fly away. But if you love God, He is ‘a portion for ever(Psalm 73:26). As He is called a Sun for comfort, so a Rock for eternity; He abides for ever. Thus we see it is better to love God than the world.
If it is better to love God than the world, surely also it is better to love God than sin. What is there in sin, that any should love it? Sin is a debt. ‘Forgive us our debts(Matthew 6:12). It is a debt which binds over to the wrath of God; why should we love sin? Does any man love to be in debt? Sin is a disease. ‘The whole head is sick(Isaiah 1:5). And will you love sin? Will any man hug a disease? Will he love his plague-sores? Sin is a pollution. The apostle calls it ‘filthiness(James 1:21). It is compared to leprosy and to poison of asps. God’s heart rises against sinners. ‘My soul loathed them(Zechariah 11:8). Sin is a misshapen monster: lust makes a man brutish, malice makes him devilish. What is in sin to be loved? Shall we love deformity? Sin is an enemy. It is compared to a ‘serpent(Proverbs 23:32). It has four stings - shame, guilt, horror, death. Will a man love that which seeks his death? Surely then it is better to love God than sin. God will save you, sin will damn you; is he not become foolish who loves damnation?
(12) The relation we stand in to God calls for love. There is near affinity. ‘Thy Maker is thy husband(Isaiah 54:5). And shall a wife not love her husband? He is full of tenderness: His spouse is to him as the apple of his eye. He rejoices over her, as the bridegroom over the bride (Isaiah 62:5). He loves the believer, as He loves Christ (John 17:26). The same love for quality, though not equally. Either we must love God, or we give ground of suspicion that we are not yet united to Him.
(13) Love is the most abiding grace. This will stay with us when other graces take their farewell. In heaven we shall need no repentance, because we shall have no sin. In heaven we shall not need patience, because there will be no affliction. In heaven we shall need no faith because faith looks at things unseen (Hebrews 11:1). But then we shall see God face to face; and where there is vision, there is no need of faith.
But when the other graces are out of date, love continues; and in this sense the apostle says that love is greater than faith, because it abides the longest. ‘Charity never faileth(1 Corinthians 13:8). Faith is the staff we walk with in this life. ‘We walk by faith(2 Corinthians 5:7). But we shall leave this staff at heaven’s door, and only love shall enter. Thus love carries away the crown from all the other graces. Love is the most long-lived grace, it is a blossom of eternity. How should we strive to excel in this grace, which alone shall live with us in heaven, and shall accompany us to the marriage supper of the Lamb!
(14) Love to God will never let sin thrive in the heart. Some plants will not thrive when they are near together: the love of God withers sin. Though the old man live, yet as a sick man, it is weak, and draws its breath short. The flower of love kills the weed of sin though sin does not die perfectly yet it dies daily. How should we labour for that grace which is the only corrosive to destroy sin!
(15) Love to God is an excellent means for growth of grace. ‘But grow in grace(2 Peter 3:18). Growth in grace is very pleasing to God. Christ accepts the truth of grace, but commends the degrees of grace; and what can more promote and augment grace than love to God? Love is like watering of the root, which makes the tree grow. Therefore the apostle uses this expression in his prayer, ‘The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God(2 Thessalonians 3:5). He knew this grace of love would nurse and cherish all the graces.
(16) The great benefit which will accrue to us, if we love God. ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him(1 Corinthians 2:9). The eye has seen rare sights, the ear has heard sweet music; but eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor can the heart of man conceive what God has prepared for them that love Him! Such glorious rewards are laid up that, as Augustine says, faith itself is not able to comprehend. God has promised a crown of life to them that love Him (James 1:12). This crown encircles within it all blessedness - riches, and glory, and delight: and it is a crown that fades not away (1 Peter 5:4). Thus God would draw us to Him by rewards.
(17) Love to God is armour of proof against error. For want of hearts full of love, men have heads full of error; unholy opinions are for want of holy affections. Why are men given up to strong delusions? Because ‘they receive not the love of truth(2 Thessalonians 2:10, 11). The more we love God, the more we hate those heterodox opinions that would draw us off from God into libertinism.
(18) If we love God, we have all winds blowing for us, everything in the world shall conspire for our good. We know not what fiery trials we may meet with, but to them that love God all things shall work for good. Those things which work against them, shall work for them; their cross shall make way for a crown; every wind shall blow them to the heavenly port.
(19) Want of love to God is the ground of apostasy. The seed in the parable, which had no root, fell away. He who has not the love of God rooted in his heart will fall away in time of temptation. He who loves God will cleave to Him, as Ruth to Naomi. ‘Where thou goest I will go, and where thou diest I will die(Ruth 1:16, 17). But he who wants love to God will do as Orpah to her mother in law; she kissed her, and took her farewell of her. That soldier who has no love to his commander, when he sees an opportunity, will leave him, and run over to the enemy’s side. He who has no love in his heart to God, you may set him down for an apostate.
(20) Love is the only thing in which we can retaliate with God. If God be angry with us, we must not be angry again: if He chide us, we must not chide Him again; but if God loves us, we must love Him again. There is nothing in which we can answer God again, but love. We must not give Him word for word, but we must give Him love for love.
Thus we have seen twenty motives to excite and inflame our love to God.
Question. What shall we do to love God?
Answer. Study God. Did we study Him more, we should love Him more. Take a view of His superlative excellences, His holiness, His incomprehensible goodness. The angels know God better than we, and clearly behold the splendour of His majesty; therefore they are so deeply enamoured with Him.
Labour for an interest in God. ‘O God, thou art my God(Psalm 63:1). That pronoun ‘my’, is a sweet loadstone to love; a man loves that which is his own. The more we believe, the more we love: faith is the root, and love is the flower that grows upon it. ‘Faith which worketh by love(Galatians 5:6).
Make it your earnest request to God, that He will give you a heart to love Him. This is an acceptable request, surely God will not deny it. When king Solomon asked wisdom of God, ‘Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart(1 Kings 3:9), ‘the speech pleased the Lord(verse 10). So when you cry to God, ‘Lord, give me a heart to love Thee. It is my grief, I can love Thee no more. Oh, kindle this fire from heaven upon the altar of my heart!’ surely this prayer pleases the Lord, and He will pour of His Spirit upon you, whose golden oil shall make the lamp of your love burn bright.

2. An exhortation to preserve your love to God.
You who have love to God, labour to preserve it; let not this love die, and be quenched.
As you would have God’s love to be continued to you, let your love be continued to Him. Love, as fire, will be ready to go out. ‘Thou hast left thy first love(Revelation 2:4). Satan labours to blow out this flame, and through neglect of duty we lose it. When a tender body leaves off clothes, it is apt to get cold: so when we leave off duty, by degrees we cool in our love to God. Of all graces, love is most apt to decay; therefore we had need to be the more careful to preserve it. If a man has a jewel, he will keep it; if he has land of inheritance, he will keep it; what care then should we have to keep this grace of love! It is sad to see professors declining in their love to God; many are in a spiritual consumption, their love is decaying.
There are four signs by which Christians may know that their love is in a consumption.
(1) When they have lost their taste. He that is in a deep consumption has no taste; he does not find that savoury relish in his food as formerly. So when Christians have lost their taste, and they find no sweetness in a promise, it is a sign of a spiritual consumption. ‘If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious(1 Peter 2:3). Time was, when they found comfort in drawing nigh to God. His Word was as the dropping honey, very delicious to the palate of their soul, but now it is otherwise. They can taste no more sweetness in spiritual things than in the ‘white of an egg(Job 6:6). This is a sign they are in a consumption; to lose the taste, argues the loss of the first love.
(2) When Christians have lost their appetite. A man in a deep consumption has not that relish for his food as formerly. Time was, when Christians did ‘hunger and thirst after righteousness(Matthew 5:6). They minded things of a heavenly aspect, the grace of the Spirit, the blood of the cross, the light of God’s countenance. They had a longing for ordinances, and came to them as a hungry man to a feast. But now the case is altered. They have no appetite, they do not so prize Christ, they have not such strong affections to the Word, their hearts do not burn within them; a sad presage, they are in a consumption, their love is decaying. It was a sign David’s natural strength was abated, when they covered him with clothes, and yet he gat no heat (1 Kings 1:1). So when men are plied with hot clothes (I mean ordinances), yet they have no heat of affection, but are cold and stiff, as if they were ready to be laid forth; this is a sign their first love is declined, they are in a deep consumption.
(3) When Christians grow more in love with the world, it argues the decrease of spiritual love. They were once of a sublime, heavenly temper, they did speak the language of Canaan: but now they are like the fish in the gospel, which had money in its mouth (Matthew 17:27). They cannot lisp out three words, but one is about mammon. Their thoughts and affections, like Satan, are still compassing the earth, a sign they are going down the hill apace, their love to God is in a consumption. We may observe, when nature decays and grows weaker, persons go more stooping: and truly, when the heart goes more stooping to the earth, and is so bowed together that it can scarcely lift up itself to a heavenly thought, it is now sadly declining in its first love. When rust cleaves to metal, it not only takes away the brightness of the metal, but it cankers and consumes it: so when the earth cleaves to men’s souls, it not only hinders the shining lustre of their graces, but by degrees it cankers them.
(4) When Christians make little reckoning of God’s worship. Duties of religion are performed in a dead, formal manner; if they are not left undone, yet they are ill done. This is a sad symptom of a spiritual consumption; remissness in duty shows a decay in our first love. The strings of a violin being slack, the violin can never make good music; when men grow slack in duty, they pray as if they prayed not; this can never make any harmonious sound in God’s ears. When the spiritual motion is slow and heavy, and the pulse of the soul beats low, it is a sign that Christians have left their first love.
Let us take heed of this spiritual consumption; it is dangerous to abate in our love. Love is such a grace as we know not how to be without. A soldier may as well be without his weapons, an artist without his pencil, a musician without his instrument, as a Christian can be without love. The body cannot want its natural heat. Love is to the soul as the natural heat is to the body, there is no living without it. Love influences the graces, it excites the affections, it makes us grieve for sin, it makes us cheerful in God; it is like oil to the wheels; it quickens us in God’s service. How careful then should we be to keep alive our love for God!
Question. How may we keep our love from going out?
Answer. Watch your hearts every day. Take notice of the first declinings in grace. Observe yourselves when you begin to grow dull and listless, and use all means for quickening. Be much in prayer, meditation, and holy conference. When the fire is going out you throw on fuel: so when the flame of your love is going out, make use of ordinances and gospel promises, as fuel to keep the fire of your love burning.

3. An exhortation to increase your love to God.
Let me exhort you, Christians, to increase your love to God. Let your love be raised up higher. ‘And this I pray, that your love may abound more and more(Philippians 1:9). Our love to God should be as the light of the morning: first there is the day-break, then it shines brighter to the full meridian. They who have a few sparks of love should blow up those divine sparks into a flame. A Christian should not be content with so small a dram of grace, as may make him wonder whether he has any grace or not, but should be still increasing the stock. He who has a little gold, would have more; you who love God a little, labour to love Him more. A godly man is contented with a very little of the world; yet he is never satisfied, but would have more of the Spirit’s influence, and labours to add one degree of love to another. To persuade Christians to put more oil to the lamp, and increase the flame of their love, let me propose these four divine incentives.
(1) The growth of love evinces its truth. If I see the almond tree bud and flourish, I know there is life in the root. Paint will not grow; a hypocrite, who is but a picture, will not grow. But where we see love to God increasing and growing larger, as Elijah’s cloud, we may conclude it is true and genuine.
(2) By the growth of love we imitate the saints in the Bible. Their love to God, like the waters of the sanctuary, did rise higher. The disciples love to Christ at first was weak, they fled from Christ; but after Christ’s death it grew more vigorous, and they made an open profession of Him. Peter’s love at first was more infirm and languid, he denied Christ; but afterwards how boldly did he preach Him! When Christ put him to a trial of his love, ‘Simon, lovest thou Me?(John 21:16), Peter could make his humble yet confident appeal to Christ, ‘Lord, thou knowest that I love Thee.’ Thus that tender plant which before was blown down with the wind of a temptation, now is grown into a cedar, which all the powers of hell cannot shake.
(3) The growth of love will amplify the reward. The more we burn in love, the more we shall shine in glory: the higher our love, the brighter our crown.
(4) The more we love God, the more love we shall have from Him. Would we have God unbosom the sweet secrets of His love to us? Would we have the smiles of His face? Oh, then let us strive for higher degrees of love. St. Paul counted gold and pearl but dung for Christ (Philippians 3:8). Yea, he was so inflamed with love to God, that he could have wished himself accursed from Christ for his brethren the Jews (Romans 9:3). Not that he could be accursed from Christ; but such was his fervent love and pious zeal for the glory of God, that he would have been content to have suffered, even beyond what is fit to speak, if God might have had more honour.
Here was love screwed up to the highest pitch that it was possible for a mortal to arrive at: and behold how near he lay to God’s heart! The Lord takes him up to heaven a while, and lays him in His bosom, where he had such a glorious sight of God, and heard those ‘unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter(2 Corinthians 12:4). Never was any man a loser by his love to God.
If our love to God does not increase, it will soon decrease. If the fire is not blown up, it will quickly go out. Therefore Christians should above all things endeavour to cherish and excite their love to God. This exhortation will be out of date when we come to heaven, for then our light shall be clear, and our love perfect; but now it is in season to exhort, that our love to God may abound yet more and more .



Chapter Seven

EFFECTUAL CALLING
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The second qualification of the persons to whom this privilege in the text belongs, is, They are the called of God. All things work for good ‘to them who are called.’ Though this word called is placed in order after loving of God, yet in nature it goes before it. Love is first named, but not first wrought; we must be called of God, before we can love God.
Calling is made (Romans 8:30) the middle link of the golden chain of salvation. It is placed between predestination and glorification; and if we have this middle link fast, we are sure of the two other ends of the chain. For the clearer illustration of this there are six things observable.

1. A distinction about calling.
There is a two-fold call.
(1) There is an outward call, which is nothing else but God’s blessed tender of grace in the gospel, His parleying with sinners, when He invites them to come in and accept of mercy. Of this our Saviour speaks: ‘Many are called, but few chosen(Matthew 20:16). This external call is insufficient to salvation, yet sufficient to leave men without excuse.
(2) There is an inward call, when God wonderfully overpowers the heart, and draws the will to embrace Christ. This is, as Augustine speaks, an effectual call. God, by the outward call, blows a trumpet in the ear; by the inward call, He opens the heart, as He did the heart of Lydia (Acts 16:14). The outward call may bring men to a profession of Christ, the inward call brings them to a possession of Christ. The outward call curbs a sinner, the inward call changes him.

2. Our deplorable condition before we are called.
(1) We are in a state of vassalage. Before God calls a man, he is at the devil’s call. If he say, Go, he goes: the deluded sinner is like the slave that digs in the mine, hews in the quarry, or tugs at the oar. He is at the command of Satan, as the ass is at the command of the driver.
(2) We are in a state of darkness. ‘Ye were sometimes darkness(Ephesians 5:8). Darkness is very disconsolate. A man in the dark is full of fear, he trembles every step he takes. Darkness is dangerous. He who is in the dark may quickly go out of the right way, and fall into rivers or whirlpools; so in the darkness of ignorance, we may quickly fall into the whirlpool of hell.
(3) We are in a state of impotency. ‘When we were without strength(Romans 5:6). No strength to resist a temptation, or grapple with a corruption; sin cut the lock where our strength lay (Judges 16:20). Nay, there is not only impotency, but obstinacy, ‘Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost(Acts 7:51). Besides indisposition to good, there is opposition.
(4) We are in a state of pollution. ‘I saw thee polluted in thy blood(Ezekiel 16:6). The fancy coins earthly thoughts; the heart is the devil’s forge, where the sparks of lust fly.
(5) We are in a state of damnation. We are born under a curse. The wrath of God abideth on us (John 3:36). This is our condition before God is pleased by a merciful call to bring us near to Himself, and free us from that misery in which we were before engulfed.

3. The means of our effectual call.
The ordinary means which the Lord uses in calling us, is not by raptures and revelations, but is,
(1) By His Word, which is ‘the rod of his strength(Psalm 110:2). The voice of the Word is God’s call to us; therefore He is said to speak to us from heaven (Hebrews 12:25). That is, in the ministry of the Word. When the Word calls from sin, it is as if we heard a voice from heaven.
(2) By His Spirit. This is the loud call. The Word is the instrumental cause of our conversion, the Spirit is the efficient. The ministers of God are only the pipes and organs; it is the Spirit blowing in them, that effectually changes the heart. ‘While Peter spoke, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word(Acts 10:44). It is not the farmer’s industry in ploughing and sowing, that will make the ground fruitful, without the early and latter rain. So it is not the seed of the Word that will effectually convert, unless the Spirit put forth His sweet influence, and drops as rain upon the heart. Therefore the aid of God’s Spirit is to be implored, that He would put forth His powerful voice, and awaken us out of the grave of unbelief. If a man knock at a gate of brass, it will not open; but if he come with a key in his hand, it will open: so when God, who has the key of David in His hand (Revelation 3:7) comes, He opens the heart, though it be ever so fast locked against Him.

4. The method God uses in calling of sinners.
The Lord does not tie Himself to a particular way, or use the same order with all. He comes sometimes in a still small voice. Such as have had godly parents, and have sat under the warm sunshine of religious education, often do not know how or when they were called. The Lord did secretly and gradually instill grace into their hearts, as the dew falls unnoticed in drops. They know by the heavenly effects that they are called, but the time or manner they know not. The hand moves on the clock, but they do not perceive when it moves.
Thus God deals with some. Others are more stubborn and knotty sinners, and God comes to them in a rough wind. He uses more wedges of the law to break their hearts; He deeply humbles them, and shows them they are damned without Christ. Then having ploughed up the fallow ground of their hearts by humiliation, He sows the seed of consolation. He presents Christ and mercy to them, and draws their wills, not only to accept Christ, but passionately to desire, and faithfully to rest upon Him. Thus He wrought upon Paul, and called him from a persecutor to a preacher. This call, though it is more visible than the other, yet is not more real. God’s method in calling sinners may vary, but the effect is still the same.

5. The properties of this effectual calling.
(1) It is a sweet call. God so calls as He allures; He does not force, but draw. The freedom of the will is not taken away, but the stubbornness of it is conquered. ‘Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power(Psalm 110:3). After this call there are no more disputes, the soul readily obeys God’s call: as when Christ called Zacchaeus, he joyfully welcomed Him into his heart and house.
(2) It is a holy call. ‘Who hath called us with a holy calling(2 Timothy 1:9). This call of God calls men out of their sins: by it they are consecrated, and set apart for God. The vessels of the tabernacle were taken from common use, and set apart to a holy use; so they who are effectually called are separated from sin, and consecrated to God’s service. The God whom we worship is holy, the work we are employed in is holy, the place we hope to arrive at is holy; all this calls for holiness. A Christian’s heart is to be the presence-chamber of the blessed Trinity; and shall not holiness to the Lord be written upon it? Believers are children of God the Father, members of God the Son, and temples of God the Holy Ghost; and shall they not be holy? Holiness is the badge and livery of God’s people. ‘The people of thy holiness(Isaiah 63:18). As chastity distinguishes a virtuous woman from a harlot, so holiness distinguishes the godly from the wicked. It is a holy calling; ‘For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness(1 Thessalonians 4:7). Let not any man say he is called of God, that lives in sin. Has God called you to be a swearer, to be a drunkard? Nay, let not the merely moral person say he is effectually called. What is civility without sanctity? It is but a dead carcass strewed with flowers. The king’s picture stamped upon brass will not go current for gold. The merely moral man looks as if he had the King of heaven’s image stamped upon him, but he is not better than counterfeit metal, which will not pass for current with God.
(3) It is an irresistible call. When God calls a man by His grace, he cannot but come. You may resist the minister’s call, but you cannot the Spirit’s call. The finger of the blessed Spirit can write upon a heart of stone, as once He wrote His laws upon tables of stone. God’s words are creating words; when He says ‘Let there be light, there was light’ ; and when He says, ‘Let there be faith’ , it shall be so. When God called Paul, he answered to the call. ‘I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision(Acts 26:19). God rides forth conquering in the chariot of His gospel; He makes the blind eyes see, and the stony heart bleed. If God will call a man, nothing shall lie in the way to hinder; difficulties shall be untied, the powers of hell shall disband. ‘Who hath resisted his will?(Romans 9:19). God bends the iron sinew, and cuts asunder the gates of brass (Psalm 107:16). When the Lord touches a man’s heart by His Spirit, all proud imaginations are brought down, and the fort-royal of the will yields to God. I may allude to Psalm 114:5, ‘What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? and thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?’ The man that before was as a raging sea, foaming forth wickedness, now on a sudden flies back and trembles, he falls down as the jailer, ‘What shall I do to be saved?(Acts 16:30). What ails thee, O sea? What ails this man? The Lord has been effectually calling him. He has been working a work of grace, and now his stubborn heart is conquered by a sweet violence.
(4) It is a high calling. ‘I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God(Philippians 3:14). It is a high calling, because we are called to high exercises of religion - to die to sin, to be crucified to the world, to live by faith, to have fellowship with the Father (1 John 1:3). This is a high calling: here is a work too high for men in a state of nature to perform. It is a high calling, because we are called to high privileges, to justification and adoption, to be made co-heirs with Christ. He that is effectually called is higher than the princes of the earth.
(5) It is a gracious call. It is the fruit and product of free grace. That God should call some, and not others; some taken, and others left; one called who is of a more rugged, morose disposition, another of sharper intellect, of a sweeter temper, rejected, here is free grace. That the poor should be rich in faith, heirs of a kingdom (James 2:5), and the nobles and great ones of the world for the most part rejected, ‘Not many noble are called’ (1 Corinthians 1:26); this is free and rich grace. ‘Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight(Matthew 11:26). That under the same sermon one should be effectually wrought upon, another no more moved than a dead man with the sound of music; that one should hear the Spirit’s voice in the Word, another not hear it; that one should be softened and moistened with the influence of heaven, another, like Gideon’s dry fleece, has no dew upon him: behold here distinguishing grace! The same affliction converts one and hardens another. Affliction to one is as the bruising of spices, which cast forth a fragrant smell; to the other it is as the crushing of weeds in a mortar, which are more unsavoury. What is the cause of this, but the free grace of God? It is a gracious calling; it is all enameled and interwoven with free grace.
(6) It is a glorious call. ‘Who hath called us unto his eternal glory(1 Peter 5:10). We are called to the enjoyment of the ever-blessed God: as if a man were called out of a prison to sit upon a throne. Quintus Curtius writes of one, who while digging in his garden was called to be king. Thus God calls us to glory and virtue (2 Peter 1:3). First to virtue, then to glory. At Athens there were two temples, the temple of Virtue, and the temple of Honour; and no man could go to the temple of honour, but through the temple of virtue. So God calls us first to virtue, and then to glory. What is the glory among men, which most so hunt after, but a feather blown in the air? What is it to the weight of glory? Is there not great reason we should follow God’s call? He calls to preferment; can there be any loss or prejudice in this? God would have us part with nothing for Him, but that which will damn us if we keep it. He has no design upon us, but to make us happy. He calls us to salvation, He calls us to a kingdom. Oh, how should we then, with Bartimaeus, throw off our ragged coat of sin, and follow Christ when He calls!
(7) It is a rare call. But few are savingly called. ‘Few are chosen(Matthew 22:14). Few, not collectively, but comparatively. The word ‘to call’ signifies to choose out some from among others. Many have the light brought to them, but few have their eyes anointed to see that light. ‘Thou hast a few names in Sardis that have not defiled their garments(Revelation 3:4). How many millions sit in the region of darkness! And in those climates where the Sun of righteousness does shine, there are many who receive the light of the truth, without the love of it. There are many formalists, but few believers. There is something that looks like faith, which is not. The Cyprian diamond, says Pliny, sparkles like the true diamond, but it is not of the right kind, it will break with the hammer: so the hypocrite’s faith will break with the hammer of persecution. But few are truly called. The number of precious stones is few, to the number of pebble stones. Most men shape their religion according to the fashion of the times; they are for the music and the idol (Daniel 3:7). The serious thought of this should make us work out our salvation with fear, and labour to be in the number of those few whom God has translated into a state of grace.
(8) It is an unchangeable call. ‘The gifts and calling of God are without repentance(Romans 11:29). That is, as a learned writer says, those gifts which flow from election. When God calls a man, He does not repent of it. God does not, as many friends do, love one day, and hate another; or as princes, who make their subjects favourites, and afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness of a saint; his condition admits of no alteration. God’s call is founded upon His decree, and His decree is immutable. Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out His people’s sins, but not their names. Let the world ring changes every hour, a believer’s condition is fixed and unalterable.

6. The end of our effectual calling is the honour of God.
That we should be to the praise of his glory(Ephesians 1:12). He that is in the state of nature, is no more fit to honour God, than a brute is to put forth acts of reason. A man before conversion continually reflects dishonour upon God. As black vapours which arise out of fenny, moorish grounds, cloud and darken the sun, so out of the natural man’s heart arise black vapours of sin, which cast a cloud upon God’s glory. The sinner is versed in treason, but understands nothing of loyalty to the King of heaven. But there are some whom the lot of free-grace falls upon, and these shall be taken as jewels from among the rubbish and be effectually called, that they may lift up God’s name in the world. The Lord will have some in all ages who shall oppose the corruptions of the times, bear witness to His truths, and convert sinners from the error of their ways. He will have His worthies, as king David had. They who have been monuments of God’s mercies, will be trumpets of His praise.
These considerations show us the necessity of effectual calling. Without it there is no going to heaven. We must be ‘made meet for the inheritance(Colossians 1:12). As God makes heaven fit for us, so He makes us fit for heaven; and what gives this meetness, but effectual calling? A man remaining in the filth and rubbish of nature, is no more fit for heaven, than a dead man is fit to inherit an estate. The high calling is not a thing arbitrary or indifferent, but as needful as salvation; yet alas, how is this one thing needful neglected! Most men, like the people of Israel, wander up and down to gather straw, but do not mind the evidences of their effectual calling.
Take notice what a mighty power God puts forth in calling of sinners! God does so call as to draw (John 6:44). Conversion is styled a resurrection. ‘Blessed is he that hath part in the first resurrection(Revelation 20:6). That is, a rising from sin to grace. A man can no more convert himself than a dead man can raise himself. It is called a creation (Colossians 3:10). To create is above the power of nature.
Objection. But, say some, the will is not dead but asleep, and God, by a moral persuasion, does only awaken us, and then the will can obey God’s call, and move of itself to its own conversion.
Answer. To this I answer, Every man is by sin bound in fetters. ‘I perceive that thou art in the bond of iniquity(Acts 8:23). A man that is in fetters, if you use arguments, and persuade him to go, is that sufficient? There must be a breaking of his fetters, and setting him free, before he can walk. So it is with every natural man; he is fettered with corruption; now the Lord by converting grace must file off his fetters, nay, give him legs to run too, or he can never obtain salvation.

Use. An exhortation to make your calling sure.
Give diligence to make your calling sure(2 Peter 1:10). This is the great business of our lives, to get sound evidences of our effectual calling. Do not acquiesce in outward privileges, do not cry as the Jews, ‘The temple of the LORD!(Jeremiah 7:4). Do not rest in baptism; what is it to have the water, and want the Spirit? Do not be content that Christ has been preached to you. Do not satisfy yourselves with an empty profession; all this may be, and yet you are no better than blazing comets. But labour to evidence to your souls that you are called of God. Be not Athenians to inquire news. What is the state and complexion of the times? What changes are likely to happen in such a year? What is all this, if you are not effectually called? What if the times should have a fairer aspect? What though glory did dwell in our land, if grace does not dwell in our hearts? Oh my brethren, when things are dark without, let all be clear within. Give diligence to make your calling sure, it is both feasible and probable. God is not wanting to them that seek Him. Let not this great business hang in hand any longer. If there were a controversy about your land, you would use all means to clear your title; and is salvation nothing? Will you not clear your title here? Consider how sad your case is, if you are not effectually called.
You are strangers to God. The prodigal went into a far country (Luke 15:13), which implies that every sinner, before conversion, is afar off from God. ‘At that time ye were without Christ, strangers to the covenants of promise(Ephesians 2:12). Men dying in their sins have no more right to promises than strangers have to the privilege of free-born citizens. If you are strangers, what language can you expect from God, but this, ‘I know you not!’
If you are not effectually called, you are enemies. ‘Alienated and enemies(Colossians 1:21). There is nothing in the Bible you can lay claim to, but the threatenings. You are heirs to all the plagues written in the book of God. Though you may resist the commands of the law, you cannot flee from the curses of the law. Such as are enemies to God, let them read their doom. ‘But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me(Luke 19:27). Oh, how it should concern you therefore to make your calling sure! How miserable and damnable will your condition be, if death call you before the Spirit call you!
Question. But is there any hope of my being called? I have been a great sinner.
Answer. Great sinners have been called. Paul was a persecutor, yet he was called. Some of the Jews who had a hand in crucifying Christ, were called. God loves to display His free grace to sinners. Therefore be not discouraged. You see a golden cord let down from heaven for poor trembling souls to lay hold upon.
Question. But how shall I know I am effectually called?
Answer. He who is savingly called is called out of himself, not only out of sinful self, but out of righteous self; he denies his duties and moral endowments. ‘Not having mine own righteousness(Philippians 3:9). He whose heart God has touched by His Spirit, lays down the idol of self righteousness at Christ’s feet, for Him to tread upon. He uses morality and duties of piety, but does not trust to them. Noah’s dove made use of her wings to fly, but trusted to the ark for safety. This is excellent, when a man is called out of himself. This self-renunciation is, as Augustine says, the first step to saving faith.
He who is effectually called has a visible change wrought. Not a change of the faculties, but of the qualities. He is altered from what he was before. His body is the same, but not his mind; he has another spirit. Paul was so changed after his conversion that people did not know him (Acts 9:21). Oh what a metamorphosis does grace make! ‘And such were some of you but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified(1 Corinthians 6:11). Grace changes the heart.
In effectual calling there is a three-fold change wrought:
(1) There is a change wrought in the understanding. Before, there was ignorance, darkness was upon the face of the deep; but now there is light, ‘Now ye are light in the Lord(Ephesians 5:8). The first work of God in the creation of the world was light: so it is in the new creation. He who is savingly called says with that man in the gospel: ‘Whereas I was blind, now I see(John 9:25). He sees such evil in sin, and excellency in the ways of God, as he never saw before. Indeed, this light which the blessed Spirit brings, may well be called a marvelous light. ‘That ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you into his marvelous light(1 Peter 2:9). It is a marvelous light in six respects. (a) Because it is strangely conveyed. It does not come from the celestial orbs where the planets are, but from the Sun of righteousness. (b) It is marvelous in its effect. This light does that which no other light can. It makes a man perceive himself to be blind. (c) It is a marvelous light, because it is more penetrating. Other light may shine upon the face: this light shines into the heart, and enlightens the conscience (2 Corinthians 4:6). (d) It is a marvelous light, because it sets those who have it a marveling. They marvel at themselves, how they could be contented to be so long without it. They marvel that their eyes should be opened, and not others. They marvel that notwithstanding they hated and opposed this light, yet it should shine in the firmament of their souls. This is what the saints will stand wondering at to all eternity. (e) It is a marvelous light, because it is more vital than any others. It not only enlightens, but quickens it makes alive those who ‘were dead in trespasses and sins(Ephesians 2:1). Therefore it is called the ‘light of life(John 8:12). (f) It is a marvelous light, because it is the beginning of everlasting light. The light of grace is the morning-star which ushers in the sunlight of glory.
Now then, reader, can you say that this marvelous light of the Spirit has dawned upon you? When you were enveloped in ignorance, and did neither know God nor yourself, suddenly a light from heaven shined round about you. This is one part of that blessed change which is wrought in the effectual calling.
(2) There is a change wrought in the will. ‘To will is present with me(Romans 7:18). The will, which before opposed Christ, now embraces Him. The will, which was an iron sinew, is now like melting wax: it readily receives the stamp and impression of the Holy Ghost. The will moves heavenward, and carries all the orbs of the affections along with it. The regenerate will answers to every call of God, as the echo answers to the voice. ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?(Acts 9:6). The will now becomes a volunteer, it enlists itself under the Captain of salvation (Hebrews 2:10). Oh what a happy change is wrought here! Before, the will kept Christ out; now, it keeps sin out.
(3) There is a change in the conduct. He who is called of God, walks directly contrary to what he did before. He walked before in envy and malice, now he walks in love; before he walked in pride, now in humility. The current is carried quite another way. As in the heart there is a new birth, so in the life a new edition. Thus we see what a mighty change is wrought in such as are called of God.
How far are they from this effectual call who never had any change? They are the same they were forty or fifty years ago, as proud and carnal as ever. They have seen many changes in their times, but they have had no change in their heart. Let not men think to leap out of the harlot’s lap (the world) into Abraham’s bosom; either they must have a gracious change while they live, or a cursed change when they die.
He who is called of God esteems this call as the highest blessing. A king whom God has called by His grace, esteems it more that he is called to be a saint, than that he is called to be a king. He values his high calling more than his high birth. Theodosius thought it a greater honour to be a Christian than to be an emperor. A carnal person can no more value spiritual blessings than a baby can value a diamond necklace. He prefers his worldly grandeur, his ease, plenty, and titles of honour, before conversion. He had rather be called duke than saint, a sign he is a stranger to effectual calling. He who is enlightened by the Spirit, counts holiness his best heraldry, and looks upon his effectual calling as his preferment. When he has taken this degree, he is a candidate for heaven.
He who is effectually called, is called out of the world. It is a ‘heavenly calling(Hebrews 3:1). He that is called of God, minds the things of a heavenly aspect; he is in the world, but not of the world. Naturalists say of precious stones, though they have their matter from the earth, yet their sparkling lustre is from the influence of the heavens: so it is with a godly man, though his body be from the earth, yet the sparkling of his affections is from heaven; his heart is drawn into the upper region, as high as Christ. He not only casts off every wicked work, but every earthly weight. He is not a worm, but an eagle.
Another sign of our effectual calling is diligence in our ordinary calling. Some boast of their high calling, but they lie idly at anchor. Religion does not seal warrants to idleness. Christians must not be slothful. Idleness is the devil’s bath; a slothful person becomes a prey to every temptation. Grace, while it cures the heart, does not make the hand lame. He who is called of God, as he works for heaven, so he works in his trade.



Chapter Eight

EXHORTATIONS TO THOSE WHO ARE CALLED
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If, after searching you find that you are effectually called, I have three exhortations to you:

1. Admire and adore God’s free-grace in calling you
- that God should pass over so many, that He should pass by the wise and noble, and that the lot of free grace should fall upon you! That He should take you out of a state of vassalage, from grinding the devil’s mill, and should set you above the princes of the earth, and call you to inherit the throne of glory! Fall upon your knees, break forth into a thankful triumph of praise: let your hearts be ten-stringed instruments, to sound forth the memorial of God’s mercy. None so deep in debt to free grace as you, and none should be so high mounted upon the pinnacle of thanksgiving. Say as the sweet singer; ‘I will extol thee, O God my King, every day will I bless thee, and I will praise thy name for ever(Psalm 145:1, 2). Those who are patterns of mercy should be trumpets of praise. O long to be in heaven, where your thanksgivings shall be purer and shall be raised a note higher.

2. Pity those who are not yet called.
Sinners in scarlet are not objects of envy, but pity; they are under ‘the power of Satan(Acts 26:18). They tread every day on the brink of the bottomless pit; and what if death should cast them in! O pity unconverted sinners. If you pity an ox or an ass going astray, will you not pity a soul going astray from God, who has lost his way and his wits, and is upon the precipice of damnation.
Nay, not only pity sinners, but pray for them. Though they curse, do you pray; you will pray for persons demented; sinners are demented. ‘When he came to himself(Luke 15:17). It seems the prodigal before conversion was not himself. Wicked men are going to execution . sin is the halter which strangles them, death turns them off the ladder, and hell is their burning place; and will you not pray for them, when you see them in such danger?

3. You who are effectually called, honour your high calling.
I, therefore, beseech you, that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called(Ephesians 4:1). Christians must keep a decorum, they must observe what is comely. This is a seasonable advice, when many who profess to be called of God, yet by their loose and irregular walking, cast a blemish on religion, whereby the ways of God are evil spoken of. It is Salvian’s speech, ‘What do pagans say when they see Christians live scandalously? Surely Christ taught them no better.’ Will you reproach Christ, and make Him suffer again, by abusing your heavenly calling? It is one of the saddest sights to see a man lift up his hands in prayer, and with those hands oppress; to hear the same tongue praise God at one time, and at another lie and slander; to hear a man in words profess God, and in works deny Him. Oh how unworthy is this! Yours is a holy calling, and will you be unholy? Do not think you may take liberty as others do. The Nazarite that had a vow on him, separated himself to God, and promised abstinence; though others did drink wine, it was not fit for the Nazarite to do it. So, though others are loose and vain, it is not fit for those who are set apart for God by effectual calling. Are not flowers sweeter than weeds? You must be now ‘a peculiar people(1 Peter 2:9); not only peculiar in regard of dignity, but deportment. Abhor all motions of sin, because it would disparage your high calling.
Question. What is it to walk worthy of our heavenly calling?
Answer. It is to walk regularly, to tread with an even foot, and walk according to the rules and axioms of the Word. A true saint is for canonical obedience, he follows the canon of Scripture. ‘As many as walk according to this canon(Galatians 6:16). When we leave men’s inventions, and cleave to God’s institutions; when we walk after the Word, as Israel after the pillar of fire; this is walking worthy of our heavenly calling.
To walk worthy of our calling is to walk singularly. ‘Noah was upright in his generation(Genesis 7:1). When others walked with the devil, Noah walked with God. We are forbidden to run with the multitude (Exodus 23:2). Though in civil things singularity is not commendable, yet in religion it is good to be singular. Melanchthon was the glory of the age he lived in. Athanasius was singularly holy; he appeared for God when the stream of the times ran another way. It is better to be a pattern of holiness, than a partner in wickedness. It is better to go to heaven with a few, than to hell in the crowd. We must walk in an opposite course to the men of the world.
To walk worthy of our calling is to walk cheerfully. ‘Rejoice in the Lord evermore(Philippians 4:4). Too much drooping of spirit disparages our high calling, and makes others suspect a godly life to be melancholy. Christ loves to see us rejoicing in Him. Causinus, in his hieroglyphics, speaks of a dove, whose wings being perfumed with sweet ointments, drew the other doves after her. Cheerfulness is a perfume to draw others to godliness. Religion does not banish all joy. As there is a seriousness without sourness, so there is a cheerful liveliness without lightness. When the prodigal was converted ‘they began to be merry(Luke 15:24). Who should be cheerful, if not the people of God? They are no sooner born of the Spirit, but they are heirs to a crown. God is their portion, and heaven is their mansion, and shall they not rejoice?
To walk worthy of our calling is to walk wisely. Walking wisely implies three things.
(1) To walk warily. ‘The wise man’s eyes are in his head(Ecclesiastes 2:14). Others watch for our halting, therefore we had need look to our standing. We must beware, not only of scandals, but of all that is unbecoming, lest thereby we open the mouth of others with a fresh cry against religion. If our piety will not convert men, our prudence may silence them.
(2) To walk courteously. The spirit of the gospel is full of meekness and candour. ‘Be courteous(1 Peter 3:8). Take heed of a morose, supercilious behaviour. Religion does not take away civility, but refines it. ‘Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the children of Heth(Genesis 23:7). Though they were of a heathenish race, yet Abraham gave them a civil respect. Paul was of an affable temper. ‘I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some(1 Corinthians 9:22). In lesser matters the apostle yielded to others, that by his obliging manner he might win upon them.
(3) To walk magnanimously. Though we must be humble, yet not base. It is unworthy to prostitute ourselves to the lusts of men. What is sinfully imposed ought to be zealously opposed. Conscience is God’s diocese, where none has right to visit, but He who is the Bishop of our souls (1 Peter 2:25). We must not be like hot iron, which may be beaten into any form. A brave spirited Christian will rather suffer, than let his conscience be violated. Here is the serpent and the dove united, sagacity and innocence. This prudential walking comports with our high calling, and does not a little adorn the gospel of Christ.
To walk worthy of our calling is to walk influentially - to do good to others, and to be rich in acts of mercy (Hebrews 13:16). Good works honour religion. As Mary poured the ointment on Christ, so by good works we pour ointments on the head of the gospel, and make it give forth a fragrant smell. Good works, though they are not causes of salvation, yet they are evidences. When with our Saviour we go about doing good, and send abroad the refreshing influence of our liberality, we walk worthy of our high calling.
Here is matter of consolation to you who are effectually called. God has magnified rich grace toward you. You are called to great honour to be co-partners with the angels, and co-heirs with Christ; this should revive you in the worst of times. Let men reproach and miscall you; set God’s calling of you against man’s miscalling. Let men persecute you to death: they do but give you a pass, and send you to heaven the sooner. How may this cure the trembling of the heart! What, though the sea roar, though the earth be unquiet, though the stars are shaken out of their places, you need not fear. You are called, and therefore are sure to be crowned.



Chapter Nine

CONCERNING GOD’S PURPOSE
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1. God’s purpose is the cause of salvation.
The third and last thing in the text, which I shall but briefly glance at, is the ground and origin of our effectual calling, in these words, ‘according to his purpose(Ephesians 1:11). Anselm renders it, According to his good will. Peter Martyr reads it, According to His decree. This purpose, or decree of God, is the fountainhead of our spiritual blessings. It is the impulsive cause of our vocation, justification, glorification. It is the highest link in the golden chain of salvation. What is the reason that one man is called, and not another? It is from the eternal purpose of God. God’s decree gives the casting voice in man’s salvation.
Let us then ascribe the whole work of grace to the pleasure of God’s will. God did not choose us because we were worthy, but by choosing us He makes us worthy. Proud men are apt to assume and arrogate too much to themselves, in being sharers with God. While many cry out against church sacrilege, they are in the meantime guilty of a far greater sacrilege, in robbing God of His glory, while they go to set the crown of salvation upon their own head. But we must resolve all into God’s purpose. The signs of salvation are in the saints, but the cause of salvation is in God.
If it be God’s purpose that saves, then it is not free will. This Pelagians are strenuous asserters of free will. They tell us that a man has an innate power to effect his own conversion; but this text confutes it. Our calling is ‘according to God’s purpose.’ The Scripture plucks up the root of free will. ‘It is not of him that willeth(Romans 9:16). All depends upon the purpose of God. When the prisoner is cast at the bar, there is no saving him, unless the king has a purpose to save him. God’s purpose is His prerogative royal.
If it is God’s purpose that saves, then it is not merit. Bellarmine holds that good works do expiate sin and merit glory; but the text says that we are called according to God’s purpose, and there is a parallel Scripture, ‘Who hath saved us, and called us, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace(2 Timothy 1:9). There is no such thing as merit. Our best works have in them both defection and infection, and so are but glittering sins; therefore if we are called and justified, it is God’s purpose brings it to pass.
Objection. But the Papists allege that Scripture for merit: ‘Henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day(2 Timothy 4:8). This is the force of their argument. If God in justice rewards our works, then they merit salvation.
Reply. To this I answer, God gives a reward as a just Judge, not to the worthiness of our works, but to the worthiness of Christ. God as a just Judge rewards us, not because we have deserved it, but because He has promised it. God has two courts, a court of mercy, and a court of justice: the Lord condemns those works in the court of justice, which He crowns in the court of mercy. Therefore that which carries the main stroke in our salvation, is the purpose of God.
Again, if the purpose of God be the spring-head of happiness, then we are not saved for faith foreseen. It is absurd to think anything in us could have the least influence upon our election. Some say that God did foresee that such persons would believe, and therefore did choose them; so they would make the business of salvation to depend upon something in us. Whereas God does not choose us FOR faith, but TO faith. ‘He hath chosen us, that we should be holy(Ephesians 1:4), not because we would be holy, but that we might be holy. We are elected to holiness, not for it. What could God foresee in us, but pollution and rebellion! If any man be saved, it is according to God’s purpose.
Question. How shall we know that God has a purpose to save us?
Answer. By being effectually called. ‘Give diligence to make your calling and election sure(2 Peter 1:10).We make our election sure, by making our calling sure. ‘God hath chosen you to salvation through sanctification(2 Thessalonians 2:13). By the stream, we come at last to the fountain. If we find the stream of sanctification running in our souls, we may by this come to the spring-head of election. When a man cannot look up to the firmament, yet he may know the moon is there by seeing it shine upon the water: so, though I cannot look up into the secret of God’s purpose, yet I may know I am elected, by the shining of sanctifying grace in my soul. Whosoever finds the word of God transcribed and copied out into his heart, may undeniably conclude his election.

2. God’s purpose is the ground of assurance.
Here is a sovereign elixir of unspeakable comfort to those who are the called of God. Their salvation rests upon God’s purpose. ‘The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal. The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity(2 Timothy 2:19). Our graces are imperfect, our comforts ebb and flow, but God’s foundation standeth sure. They who are built upon this rock of God’s eternal purpose, need not fear falling away; neither the power of man, nor the violence of temptation, shall ever be able to overturn them.

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1 Corinthians 13:12

American Standard Version:

12 For now we see in a mirror, {1} darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known. {1) Gr in a riddle}


King James Version:

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. {darkly: Gr. in a riddle}



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2 Corinthians 3:18

American Standard Version:

18 But we all, with unveiled face {1} beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit. {1) Or reflecting as a mirror}


King James Version:


King James Version:

18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. {by the...: or, of the Lord the Spirit}



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1 John 3:14

American Standard Version:

14 ¶ We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death.


King James Version:

14 ¶ We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.



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2 Corinthians 5:1

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ For we know that if the earthly house of our {1} tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. {1) Or bodily frame; Compare Wis 9:15}


King James Version:

1 ¶ For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.



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2 Corinthians 1:22

American Standard Version:

22 {1} who also sealed us, and gave us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. {1) Or seeing that he both sealed us}


King James Version:

22 Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.



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1 Samuel 14:27

American Standard Version:

27 But Jonathan heard not when his father charged the people with the oath: wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand, and dipped it in the honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth; and his eyes were enlightened.


King James Version:

27 But Jonathan heard not when his father charged the people with the oath: wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand, and dipped it in an honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth; and his eyes were enlightened.



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Psalm 25:10

American Standard Version:

10 All the paths of Jehovah are lovingkindness and truth Unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.


King James Version:

10 All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.



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Colossians 1:11

American Standard Version:

11 {1} strengthened {2} with all power, according to the might of his glory, unto all {3} patience and longsuffering with joy; {1) Gr made powerful 2) Or in 3) Or stedfastness}


King James Version:

11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;



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Deuteronomy 33:27

American Standard Version:

27 The eternal God is thy dwelling-place, And underneath are the everlasting arms. And he thrust out the enemy from before thee, And said, Destroy.


King James Version:

27 The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.



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2 Corinthians 12:9

American Standard Version:

9 And he hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may {1} rest upon me. {1) Or cover me; Gr spread a tabernacle over me; See Re 7:15}


King James Version:

9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.



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1 Kings 17:14

American Standard Version:

14 For thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, The jar of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that Jehovah sendeth rain upon the earth.


King James Version:

14 For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth. {sendeth: Heb. giveth}



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Micah 7:19

American Standard Version:

19 He will again have compassion upon us; he will {1} tread our iniquities under foot; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. {1) Or subdue our iniquities}


King James Version:

19 He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.



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Job 23:16

American Standard Version:

16 For God hath made my heart faint, And the Almighty hath terrified me;


King James Version:

16 For God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me:



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Psalm 2:9

American Standard Version:

9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.


King James Version:

9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.



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2 Chronicles 14:11

American Standard Version:

11 And Asa cried unto Jehovah his God, and said, Jehovah, {1} there is none {2} besides thee to help, between the mighty and him that hath no strength: help us, O Jehovah our God; for we rely on thee, and in thy name are we come against this multitude. O Jehovah, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee. {1) Or there is no difference with thee to help, whether the mighty or him etc 2) Or like}


King James Version:

11 And Asa cried unto the LORD his God, and said, LORD, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O LORD our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O LORD, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee. {man: or, mortal man}



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Genesis 32:7

American Standard Version:

7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid and was distressed: and he divided the people that were with him, and the flocks, and the herds, and the camels, into two companies;


King James Version:

7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed: and he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands;



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Genesis 32:12

American Standard Version:

12 And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.


King James Version:

12 And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.



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Exodus 34:6

American Standard Version:

6 And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth;


King James Version:

6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,



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Exodus 23:25

American Standard Version:

25 And ye shall serve Jehovah your God, and he will bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.


King James Version:

25 And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.



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Deuteronomy 33:29

American Standard Version:

29 Happy art thou, O Israel: Who is like unto thee, a people saved by Jehovah, The shield of thy help, And the sword of thy excellency! And thine enemies shall {1} submit themselves unto thee; And thou shalt tread upon their high places. {1) Or yield feigned obedience}


King James Version:

29 Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places. {found...: or, subdued}



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1 Samuel 24:16

American Standard Version:

16 ¶ And it came to pass, when David had made an end of speaking these words unto Saul, that Saul said, Is this thy voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice, and wept.


King James Version:

16 ¶ And it came to pass, when David had made an end of speaking these words unto Saul, that Saul said, Is this thy voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice, and wept.



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1 Samuel 1:18

American Standard Version:

18 And she said, Let thy handmaid find favor in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat; and her countenance was no more sad.


King James Version:

18 And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.



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Job 42:8

American Standard Version:

8 Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job. {him: Heb. his face, or, person}


King James Version:

8 Now therefore, take unto you seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept, that I deal not with you after your folly; for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.



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Psalm 32:8

American Standard Version:

8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will counsel thee with mine eye upon thee.


King James Version:

8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. {guide...: Heb. counsel thee, mine eye shall be upon thee}



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Psalm 91:15

American Standard Version:

15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble: I will deliver him, and honor him.


King James Version:

15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.



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Psalm 37:39

American Standard Version:

39 But the salvation of the righteous is of Jehovah; He is their stronghold in the time of trouble.


King James Version:

39 But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: he is their strength in the time of trouble.



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Psalm 34:10

American Standard Version:

10 The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger; But they that seek Jehovah shall not want any good thing.


King James Version:

10 The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.



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Psalm 37:25

American Standard Version:

25 I have been young, and now am old; Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his seed begging bread.


King James Version:

25 I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.



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Psalm 119:92

American Standard Version:

92 ¶ Unless thy law had been my delight, I should then have perished in mine affliction.


King James Version:

92 ¶ Unless thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction.



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Psalm 103:4

American Standard Version:

4 Who redeemeth thy life from {1} destruction; Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; {1) Or the pit}


King James Version:

4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;



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Psalm 116:9

American Standard Version:

9 I will walk before Jehovah In the {1} land of the living. {1) Heb lands}


King James Version:

9 I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.



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Psalm 112:5

American Standard Version:

5 Well is it with the man that dealeth graciously and lendeth; He shall maintain his cause in judgment.


King James Version:

5 A good man sheweth favour, and lendeth: he will guide his affairs with discretion. {discretion: Heb. judgment}



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Psalm 116:12, 13

American Standard Version:

12 What shall I render unto Jehovah For all his benefits toward me?
13 I will take the cup of salvation, And call upon the name of Jehovah.


King James Version:

12 What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me?
13 I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD.



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Psalm 91:11

American Standard Version:

11 For he will give his angels charge over thee, To keep thee in all thy ways.


King James Version:

11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.



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Psalm 38:20

American Standard Version:

20 They also that render evil for good Are adversaries unto me, because I follow the thing that is good.


King James Version:

20 They also that render evil for good are mine adversaries; because I follow the thing that good is.



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Proverbs 31:12

American Standard Version:

12 She doeth him good and not evil All the days of her life.


King James Version:

12 She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.



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Isaiah 9:6

American Standard Version:

6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called {1} Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, {2} Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. {1) Or Wonderful counsellor 2) Heb Father of Eternity}


King James Version:

6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.



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Isaiah 44:3

American Standard Version:

3 For I will pour water upon {1} him that is thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: {1) Or the thirsty land}


King James Version:

3 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring:



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Isaiah 37:4

American Standard Version:

4 It may be Jehovah thy God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, {1} whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Jehovah thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left. {1) Or wherewith the king of Assyria...hath sent him}


King James Version:

4 It may be the LORD thy God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words which the LORD thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left. {left: Heb. found}



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Isaiah 37:36

American Standard Version:

36 And the angel of Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.


King James Version:

36 Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.



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Isaiah 45:11

American Standard Version:

11 ¶ Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.


King James Version:

11 ¶ Thus saith Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: Ask me of the things that are to come; concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands, command ye me.



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Daniel 6:22

American Standard Version:

22 My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, and they have not hurt me; forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.


King James Version:

22 My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.



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Hosea 14:4

American Standard Version:

4 ¶ I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him.


King James Version:

4 ¶ I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him.



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Matthew 24:31

American Standard Version:

31 And he shall send forth his angels {1} with {2} a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. {1) Many ancient authorities read with a great trumpet, and they shall gather etc 2) Or a trumpet of great sound}


King James Version:

31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. {with...: or, with a trumpet, and a great voice}



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Matthew 13:38-42

American Standard Version:

38 and the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one;
39 and the enemy that sowed them is the devil: and the harvest is {1} the end of the world; and the reapers are angels. {1) Or the consummation of the age}
40 As therefore the tares are gathered up and burned with fire; so shall it be in {1} the end of the world. {1) Or the consummation of the age}
41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity,
42 and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.


King James Version:

38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; {things...: or, scandals}
42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.



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Luke 22:43

American Standard Version:

43 {1} And there appeared unto him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. {1) Many ancient authorities omit verses 43, 44}


King James Version:

43 And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him



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Luke 16:22

American Standard Version:

22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and that he was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom: and the rich man also died, and was buried.


King James Version:

22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;



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Luke 1:28

American Standard Version:

28 And he came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art {1} highly favored, the Lord is with thee {2} .{1) Or endued with grace 2) Many ancient authorities add blessed art thou among women; See verse 42}


King James Version:

28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. {highly...: or, graciously accepted, or, of much grace}



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John 17:20

American Standard Version:

20 ¶ Neither for these only do I {1} pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word; {1) Gr make request}


King James Version:

20 ¶ Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;



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John 17:15

American Standard Version:

15 I {1} pray not that thou shouldest take them {2} from the world, but that thou shouldest keep them {2} from {3} the evil one. {1) Gr make request 2) Gr out of 3) Or evil}


King James Version:

15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.



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John 17:17

American Standard Version:

17 ¶ {1} Sanctify them in the truth: thy word is truth. {1) Or Consecrate}


King James Version:

17 ¶ Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.



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John 17:24

American Standard Version:

24 ¶ Father, {1} I desire that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. {1) Gr that which thou hast given me, I desire that where I am, they also may be with me, that etc}


King James Version:

24 ¶ Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.



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John 10:29

American Standard Version:

29 {1} My Father, who hath given them unto me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch {2} them out of the Father's hand. {1) Some ancient authorities read That which my Father hath given unto me 2) Or, aught}


King James Version:

29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.



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Acts 12:5-7

American Standard Version:

5 ¶ Peter therefore was kept in the prison: but prayer was made earnestly of the church unto God for him.
6 And when Herod was about to bring him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and guards before the door kept the prison.
7 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shined in the cell: and he smote Peter on the side, and awoke him, saying, Rise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands.


King James Version:

5 ¶ Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. {prayer...: or, instant and earnest prayer was made}
6 And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison.
7 And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands.




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Romans 2:4

American Standard Version:

4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?


King James Version:

4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?



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2 Corinthians 1:24

American Standard Version:

24 Not that we have lordship over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for in {1} faith ye stand fast. {1) Or your faith}


King James Version:

24 Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand.



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Colossians 3:14

American Standard Version:

14 and above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.


King James Version:

14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.



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1 Timothy 4:5

American Standard Version:

5 for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer.


King James Version:

5 For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.



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2 Timothy 1:14

American Standard Version:

14 {1} That good thing which was committed unto thee guard through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us. {1) Gr The good deposit}


King James Version:

14 That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.



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1 Thessalonians 1:5

American Standard Version:

5 {1} how that our {2} gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much {3} assurance; even as ye know what manner of men we showed ourselves toward you for your sake. {1) Or because our gospel etc 2) Gr good tidings; and so elsewhere; See marginal note on Mt 4:23. 3) Or fulness}


King James Version:

5 For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.



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1 Thessalonians 5:8

American Standard Version:

8 But let us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.


King James Version:

8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.



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Hebrews 1:14

American Standard Version:

14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation?


King James Version:

14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?



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Hebrews 10:24

American Standard Version:

24 and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works;


King James Version:

24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:



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James 5:15

American Standard Version:

15 and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him.


King James Version:

15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.



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2 Peter 1:4

American Standard Version:

4 whereby he hath granted unto us his precious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye may become partakers of {1} the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in that world by lust. {1) Or a}


King James Version:

4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.



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Revelation 19:9

American Standard Version:

9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they that are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are true words of God.


King James Version:

9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.



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Revelation 3:12

American Standard Version:

12 He that overcometh, I will make him a pillar in the {1} temple of my God, and he shall go out thence no more: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God, and mine own new name. {1) Or sanctuary}


King James Version:

12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.



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2 Samuel 7:18

American Standard Version:

18 ¶ Then David the king went in, and sat before Jehovah; and he said, Who am I, O Lord Jehovah, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me thus far?


King James Version:

18 ¶ Then went king David in, and sat before the LORD, and he said, Who am I, O Lord GOD? and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?



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1 Peter 3:4

American Standard Version:

4 but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.


King James Version:

4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price



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Ruth 1:21

American Standard Version:

21 I went out full, and Jehovah hath brought me home again empty; why call ye me Naomi, seeing Jehovah hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?


King James Version:

21 I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?



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Jeremiah 24:5

American Standard Version:

5 Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for good.


King James Version:

5 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. {them...: Heb. the captivity}



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Psalm 119:71

American Standard Version:

71 ¶ It is good for me that I have been afflicted; That I may learn thy statutes.


King James Version:

71 ¶ It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.



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1 Peter 1:6

American Standard Version:

6 ¶ Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold {1} trials, {1) Or temptations}


King James Version:

6 ¶ Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:



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Genesis 50:20

American Standard Version:

20 And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.


King James Version:

20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.



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Genesis 32:30

American Standard Version:

30 And Jacob called the name of the place {1} Peniel: for, said he, I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. {1) That is The face of God}


King James Version:

30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. {Peniel: that is, The face of God}



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2 Chronicles 33:11-13

American Standard Version:

11 ¶ Wherefore Jehovah brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh {1} in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. {1) Or with hooks}
12 And when he was in distress, he besought Jehovah his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
13 And he prayed unto him; and he was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Jehovah he was God.


King James Version:

11 ¶ Wherefore the LORD brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. {of the king: Heb. which were the king's} {fetters: or, chains}
12 And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,
13 And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God.



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Job 42:10

American Standard Version:

10 ¶ And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. {gave...: Heb. added all that had been to Job unto the double}


King James Version:

10 ¶ And Jehovah turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: and Jehovah gave Job twice as much as he had before.



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Acts 9:6

American Standard Version:

6 but rise, and enter into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.


King James Version:

6 And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.



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Micah 6:9

American Standard Version:

9 ¶ The voice of Jehovah crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom will {1} see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. {1) According to Sept, Vulg, and Syr fear}


King James Version:

9 ¶ The LORD'S voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. {the man...: or, thy name shall see that which is}



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Hosea 10:2

American Standard Version:

2 {1} Their heart is {2} divided; now shall they be found guilty: he will smite their altars, he will destroy their {3} pillars. {1) Or He hath divided their heart 2) Or smooth 3) Or obelisks}


King James Version:

2 Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: he shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images. {Their heart...: or, He hath divided their heart} {break...: Heb. behead} {images: Heb. statues, or, standing images}



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Isaiah 53:3

American Standard Version:

3 He was despised, and {1} rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with {2} grief: and {3} as one from whom men hide their face he was despised; and we esteemed him not. {1) Or forsaken 2) Heb sickness 3) Or he hid as it were his face from us}


King James Version:

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. {we hid...: or, he hid as it were his face from us: Heb. as an hiding of faces from him, or, from us}



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Isaiah 27:9

American Standard Version:

9 Therefore by this shall the iniquity of Jacob be {1} forgiven, and this is all the fruit {2} of taking away his sin: that he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, so that the Asherim and the sun-images shall rise no more. {1) Or expiated 2) Or to take away}


King James Version:

9 By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not stand up. {images: or, sun images}



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Psalm 87:7

American Standard Version:

7 They that sing as well as {1} they that dance shall say, All my fountains are in thee. {1) Or the players on instruments shall be there}


King James Version:

7 As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there: all my springs are in thee.



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Hosea 2:15

American Standard Version:

15 And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of {1} Achor for a door of hope; and she shall {2} make answer there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. {1) That is Troubling 2) Or sing}


King James Version:

15 And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.



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John 16:20

American Standard Version:

20 Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.


King James Version:

20 Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.



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Job 7:17

American Standard Version:

17 ¶ What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him, And that thou shouldest set thy mind upon him,


King James Version:

17 ¶ What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?



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Isaiah 1:5

American Standard Version:

5 {1} Why will ye be still stricken, that ye revolt more and more? {2} the whole head is sick, and {2} the whole heart faint. {1) Or Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt etc 2) Or every}


King James Version:

5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. {revolt...: Heb. increase revolt}



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Hebrews 12:7

American Standard Version:

7 {1} It is for chastening that ye endure; God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father chasteneth not? {1) Or Endure unto chastening}


King James Version:

7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?



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James 5:11

American Standard Version:

11 Behold, we call them blessed that endured: ye have heard of the {1} patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, how that the Lord is full of pity, and merciful. {1) Or endurance}


King James Version:

11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.



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Job 5:17

American Standard Version:

17 ¶ Behold, happy is the man whom God {1} correcteth: Therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty. {1) Or reproveth}


King James Version:

17 ¶ Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:



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2 Samuel 14:30, 31

American Standard Version:

30 Therefore he said unto his servants, See, Joab's field is near mine, and he hath barley there; go and set it on fire. And Absalom's servants set the field on fire.
31 Then Joab arose, and came to Absalom unto his house, and said unto him, Wherefore have thy servants set my field on fire?


King James Version:

30 Therefore he said unto his servants, See, Joab's field is near mine, and he hath barley there; go and set it on fire. And Absalom's servants set the field on fire. {near...: Heb. near my place}
31 Then Joab arose, and came to Absalom unto his house, and said unto him, Wherefore have thy servants set my field on fire?



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Luke 15:13

American Standard Version:

13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country; and there he wasted his substance with riotous living.


King James Version:

13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.



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Job 1:9-12

American Standard Version:

9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. {substance: or, cattle}
11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. {and he...: Heb. if he curse thee not to thy face}
12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD. {power: Heb. hand}


King James Version:

9 Then Satan answered Jehovah, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
10 Hast not thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath, on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his {1} substance is increased in the land. {1) Or cattle}
11 But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will renounce thee to thy face.
12 And Jehovah said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy {1} power; only upon himself put not forth thy hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of Jehovah. {1) Heb hand}



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Job 1:20

American Standard Version:

20 ¶ Then Job arose, and rent his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped;


King James Version:

20 ¶ Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, {mantle: or, robe}



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Job 13:15

American Standard Version:

15 {1} Behold, he will slay me; I have no hope: Nevertheless I will {2} maintain my ways before him. {1) Or Though he slay me, yet will I wait for him 2) Heb argue}


King James Version:

15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him. {maintain: Heb. prove, or, argue}



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2 Corinthians 4:17

American Standard Version:

17 For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory;


King James Version:

17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;



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Matthew 4:3

American Standard Version:

3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.


King James Version:

3 And the tempter came and said unto him, If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become {1} bread. {1) Gr loaves}



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Job 2:9

American Standard Version:

9 Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still hold fast thine integrity? renounce God, and die.


King James Version:

9 Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.



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John 13:2

American Standard Version:

2 And during supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to {1} betray him, {1) Or deliver him up}


King James Version:

2 And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him;



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1 Chronicles 21:1

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ And {1} Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. {1) Or an adversary}


King James Version:

1 ¶ And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.



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2 Corinthians 12:8

American Standard Version:

8 Concerning this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.


King James Version:

8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.



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2 Corinthians 12:7

American Standard Version:

7 And by reason of the exceeding greatness of the {1} revelations, that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a {2} thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted overmuch. {1) Some ancient authorities read revelations--wherefore, that etc 2) Or stake}


King James Version:

7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.



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Hosea 7:11

American Standard Version:

11 And Ephraim is like a silly dove, without {1} understanding: they call unto Egypt, they go to Assyria. {1) Heb heart}


King James Version:

11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.



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2 Corinthians 2:11

American Standard Version:

11 that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his devices.


King James Version:

11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.



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1 Corinthians 10:13

American Standard Version:

13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it.


King James Version:

13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. {common...: or, moderate}



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Hebrews 2:18

American Standard Version:

18 {1} For {2} in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. {1) Or For having been himself tempted in that wherein he hath suffered 2) Or wherein}


King James Version:

18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.



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Romans 8:37

American Standard Version:

37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.


King James Version:

37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.



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Matthew 26:75

American Standard Version:

75 And Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.


King James Version:

75 And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.



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John 21:15

American Standard Version:

15 ¶ So when they had broken their fast, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of {1} John, {2} lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I {3} love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. {1) Gr Joanes; See John 1:42 margin 2) 3) Love in these places represents two different Greek words}


King James Version:

15 ¶ So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.



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Ephesians 6:16

American Standard Version:

16 withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.


King James Version:

16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.



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Acts 27:4

American Standard Version:

4 And putting to sea from thence, we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were contrary.


King James Version:

4 And when we had launched from thence, we sailed under Cyprus, because the winds were contrary.



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Song of Solomon 5:6

American Standard Version:

6 I opened to my beloved; But my beloved had {1} withdrawn himself, and was gone. My soul {2} had failed me when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. {1) Or turned away 2) Heb went forth}


King James Version:

6 I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.



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Job 6:4

American Standard Version:

4 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, The poison whereof my spirit drinketh up: The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.


King James Version:

4 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.



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Psalm 51:11

American Standard Version:

11 Cast me not away from thy presence; And take not thy holy Spirit from me.


King James Version:

11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.



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Isaiah 54:8

American Standard Version:

8 {1} In overflowing wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting lovingkindness will I have mercy on thee, saith Jehovah thy Redeemer. {1) Or In a little wrath}


King James Version:

8 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.



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Isaiah 57:16

American Standard Version:

16 For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth; for the spirit would faint before me, and the souls that I have made.


King James Version:

16 For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.



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Song of Solomon 5:2

American Standard Version:

2 ¶ I {1} was asleep, but my heart waked: It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my {2} undefiled; For my head is filled with dew, My locks with the drops of the night. {1) Or sleep, but my heart waketh 2) Heb perfect}


King James Version:

2 ¶ I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.



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1 John 2:15

American Standard Version:

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.


King James Version:

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.



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Psalm 63:3

American Standard Version:

3 ¶ Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, My lips shall praise thee.


King James Version:

3 ¶ Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.



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John 20:13

American Standard Version:

13 And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.


King James Version:

13 And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.



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Ezekiel 8:6

American Standard Version:

6 And he said unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel do commit here, {1} that I should go far off from my sanctuary? But {2} thou shalt again see yet other great abominations. {1) Or to get them far off 2) Or turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations; So also in verses 13, 15}


King James Version:

6 He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.



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Judges 18:24

American Standard Version:

24 And he said, ye have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and are gone away, and what have I more? and how then say ye unto me, What aileth thee?


King James Version:

24 And he said, Ye have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and ye are gone away: and what have I more? and what is this that ye say unto me, What aileth thee?



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Song of Solomon 3:2

American Standard Version:

2 I said, I will rise now, and go about the city; In the streets and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.


King James Version:

2 I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.



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Song of Solomon 3:3

American Standard Version:

3 The watchmen that go about the city found me; To whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?


King James Version:

3 The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?



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Isaiah 57:17

American Standard Version:

17 ¶ For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him; I hid my face and was wroth; and he went on {1} backsliding in the way of his heart. {1) Heb turning away}


King James Version:

17 ¶ For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. {frowardly: Heb. turning away}



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Matthew 27:46

American Standard Version:

46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, {1} Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, {2} why hast thou forsaken me? {1) Ps 22:1. 2) Or why didst thou forsake me?}


King James Version:

46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?



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2 Corinthians 7:6

American Standard Version:

6 Nevertheless he that comforteth the lowly, even God, comforted us by the {1} coming of Titus; {1) Gr presence; Compare 2 Th 2:9}


King James Version:

6 Nevertheless God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus;



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Psalm 97:11

American Standard Version:

11 Light is sown for the righteous, And gladness for the upright in heart.


King James Version:

11 Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.



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1 Thessalonians 4:17

American Standard Version:

17 then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.


King James Version:

17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.



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Psalm 120:5

American Standard Version:

5 ¶ Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech, That I dwell among the tents of Kedar!


King James Version:

5 ¶ Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!



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Psalm 119:136

American Standard Version:

136 ¶ Streams of water run down mine eyes, Because they observe not thy law.


King James Version:

136 ¶ Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.



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Jeremiah 11:15

American Standard Version:

15 What hath my beloved to do in my house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness {1} with many, and the holy flesh is passed from thee? {2} when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest. {1) The text is obscure. The Sept has Shall vows and holy flesh take away from thee they wickedness, or shalt thou escape by these? 2) Or when thine evil cometh}


King James Version:

15 What hath my beloved to do in mine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from thee? when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest. {What...: Heb. What is to my beloved in my house} {when...: or, when thy evil is}



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Mark 3:5

American Standard Version:

5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their heart, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he stretched it forth; and his hand was restored.


King James Version:

5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. {hardness: or, blindness}



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Psalm 35:13

American Standard Version:

13 But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I afflicted my soul with fasting; And my prayer {1} returned into mine own bosom. {1) Or shall return}


King James Version:

13 But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom. {humbled: or, afflicted}



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Psalm 119:126, 127

American Standard Version:

126 ¶ It is time for Jehovah to work; For they have made void thy law.
127 ¶ Therefore I love thy commandments Above gold, yea, above fine gold.


King James Version:

126 ¶ It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law.
127 ¶ Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold.



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Jeremiah 2:23

American Standard Version:

23 How canst thou say, I am not defiled, I have not gone after the Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift {1} dromedary traversing her ways; {1) Or young camel}


King James Version:

23 How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary traversing her ways; {thou art...: or, O swift dromedary}



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Luke 18:11

American Standard Version:

11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this {1} publican. {1) See marginal note on Lu 3:12}


King James Version:

11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.



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Psalm 109:4

American Standard Version:

4 For my love they are my adversaries: But I give myself unto prayer.


King James Version:

4 For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.



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Daniel 12:3

American Standard Version:

3 And {1} they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. {1) Or the teachers}


King James Version:

3 And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. {wise: or, teachers}



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2 Corinthians 7:4

American Standard Version:

4 Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my glorying on your behalf: I am filled with comfort, I overflow with joy in all our affliction.


King James Version:

4 Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my glorying of you: I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation.



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Romans 7:24

American Standard Version:

24 Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of {1} the body of this death? {1) Or this body of death}


King James Version:

24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? {the body...: or, this body of death}



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Romans 7:25

American Standard Version:

25 {1} I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. {1) Many ancient authorities read But thanks be to God; Compare Ro 6:17}


King James Version:

25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.



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Job 13:23

American Standard Version:

23 ¶ How many are mine iniquities and sins? Make me to know my transgression and my sin.


King James Version:

23 ¶ How many are mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.



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Deuteronomy 32:5

American Standard Version:

5 They have {1} dealt corruptly with him, they are not his children, {2} it is their blemish; They are a perverse and crooked generation. {1) Or corrupted themselves, they etc 2) Or, but a blot upon them}


King James Version:

5 They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation. {They have...: Heb. He hath corrupted to himself} {their...: or, that they are not his children, that is their blot}



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Proverbs 30:2

American Standard Version:

2 Surely I am more brutish than any man, And have not the understanding of a man;


King James Version:

2 Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man.



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1 Corinthians 11:31

American Standard Version:

31 But if we {1} discerned ourselves, we should not be judged. {1) Gr discriminated}


King James Version:

31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.



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Galatians 5:17

American Standard Version:

17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would.


King James Version:

17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.



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Revelation 2:7

American Standard Version:

7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the {1} Paradise of God. {1) Or garden; as in Ge 2:8}


King James Version:

7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.



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Psalm 119:59

American Standard Version:

59 ¶ I thought on my ways, And turned my feet unto thy testimonies.


King James Version:

59 ¶ I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.



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Psalm 51:8

American Standard Version:

8 Make me to hear joy and gladness, That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.


King James Version:

8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.



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Jeremiah 32:38

American Standard Version:

38 and they shall be my people, and I will be their God:


King James Version:

38 And they shall be my people, and I will be their God:



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Psalm 50:7

American Standard Version:

7 ¶ Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify {1} unto thee: I am God, even thy God. {1) Or against}


King James Version:

7 ¶ Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.



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Deuteronomy 8:16

American Standard Version:

16 who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not; that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end:


King James Version:

16 Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;



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Deuteronomy 8:5

American Standard Version:

5 And thou shalt consider in thy heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so Jehovah thy God chasteneth thee.


King James Version:

5 Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.



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Psalm 103:13

American Standard Version:

13 Like as a father pitieth his children, So Jehovah pitieth them that fear him.


King James Version:

13 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.



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2 Corinthians 1:3

American Standard Version:

3 ¶ Blessed be {1} the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; {1) Or God and the Father; See Ro 15:6 margin}


King James Version:

3 ¶ Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;



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Isaiah 54:5

American Standard Version:

5 For thy Maker is thy husband; Jehovah of hosts is his name: and the Holy One of Israel is thy Redeemer; the God of the whole earth shall he be called.


King James Version:

5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. {Maker: Heb. Makers}



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Ephesians 5:29

American Standard Version:

29 for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church;


King James Version:

29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:



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Isaiah 49:16

American Standard Version:

16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.


King James Version:

16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.



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Song of Solomon 8:6

American Standard Version:

6 Set me as a seal upon thy heart, As a seal upon thine arm: For love is strong as death; Jealousy is {1} cruel as Sheol; The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, {2} A very flame of {3} Jehovah. {1) Heb hard 2) Or A most vehement flame 3) Heb Jah}


King James Version:

6 Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. {cruel: Heb. hard}



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Isaiah 43:3

American Standard Version:

3 For I am Jehovah thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour; I have given Egypt as thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in thy stead.


King James Version:

3 For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.



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Song of Solomon 5:16

American Standard Version:

16 His {1} mouth is most sweet; Yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. {1) Or speech; Heb palate}


King James Version:

16 His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. {mouth: Heb. palate}



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1 Samuel 19:4

American Standard Version:

4 And Jonathan spake good of David unto Saul his father, and said unto him, Let not the king sin against his servant, against David; because he hath not sinned against thee, and because his works have been to thee-ward very good:


King James Version:

4 And Jonathan spake good of David unto Saul his father, and said unto him, Let not the king sin against his servant, against David; because he hath not sinned against thee, and because his works have been to thee-ward very good:



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Deuteronomy 7:9

American Standard Version:

9 Know therefore that Jehovah thy God, he is God, the faithful God, who keepeth covenant and lovingkindness with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations,


King James Version:

9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;



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Titus 1:2

American Standard Version:

2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised {1} before times eternal; {1) Or long ages ago}


King James Version:

2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; {In: or, For}



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Psalm 119:75

American Standard Version:

75 ¶ I know, O Jehovah, that thy judgments are righteous, And that in faithfulness thou hast afflicted me.


King James Version:

75 ¶ I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me. {right: Heb. righteousness}



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Psalm 66:10

American Standard Version:

10 For thou, O God, hast proved us: Thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.


King James Version:

10 For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.



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Hebrews 13:5

American Standard Version:

5 {1} Be ye free from the love of money; content with such things as ye have: for himself hath said, {2} I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise forsake thee. {1) Gr, Let your turn of mind be free 2) De 31:6; Jos 1:5}


King James Version:

5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.



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John 13:1

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ Now before the feast of the passover, Jesus knowing that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto his Father, having loved his own that were in the world, he loved them {1} unto the end. {1) Or to the uttermost}


King James Version:

1 ¶ Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.



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Ephesians 5:23

American Standard Version:

23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the saviour of the body.


King James Version:

23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.



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Psalm 103:19

American Standard Version:

19 ¶ Jehovah hath established his throne in the heavens; And his kingdom ruleth over all.


King James Version:

19 ¶ The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.



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Psalm 112:4

American Standard Version:

4 Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: He is gracious, and merciful, and righteous.


King James Version:

4 Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.



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Job 36:10

American Standard Version:

10 He openeth also their ear to instruction, And commandeth that they return from iniquity.


King James Version:

10 He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity.



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Hebrews 12:11

American Standard Version:

11 All chastening seemeth for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness.


King James Version:

11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.



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2 Corinthians 4:16

American Standard Version:

16 Wherefore we faint not; but though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.


King James Version:

16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.



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1 Peter 4:14

American Standard Version:

14 If ye are reproached {1} for the name of Christ, blessed are ye; because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you. {1) Gr in}


King James Version:

14 If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.



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Hebrews 11:26

American Standard Version:

26 accounting the reproach of {1} Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he looked unto the recompense of reward. {1) Or the Christ; Compare 1 Co 10:4}


King James Version:

26 Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. {of Christ: or, for Christ}



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Job 22:21

American Standard Version:

21 ¶ Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: {1} Thereby good shall come unto thee. {1) Or as otherwise read Thereby shall thine increase be good.}


King James Version:

21 ¶ Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee. {him: that is, God}



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1 Samuel 18:21

American Standard Version:

21 And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Wherefore Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son-in-law a second time.


King James Version:

21 And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Wherefore Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son in law in the one of the twain.



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Psalm 69:22

American Standard Version:

22 ¶ Let their table before them become a snare; And when they are in peace, let it become a trap.


King James Version:

22 ¶ Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.



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Numbers 11:33

American Standard Version:

33 While the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the anger of Jehovah was kindled against the people, and Jehovah smote the people with a very great plague.


King James Version:

33 And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague.



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Deuteronomy 32:15

American Standard Version:

15 ¶ But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: Thou art waxed fat, thou art grown thick, thou art become sleek; Then he forsook God who made him, And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.


King James Version:

15 ¶ But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.



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Ecclesiastes 5:13

American Standard Version:

13 There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept by the owner thereof to his hurt:


King James Version:

13 There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.



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1 Timothy 6:9

American Standard Version:

9 But they that are minded to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition.


King James Version:

9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.



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Isaiah 6:10

American Standard Version:

10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and {1} understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed. {1) Or their heart should understand}


King James Version:

10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.



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Amos 5:10

American Standard Version:

10 They hate him that reproveth in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.


King James Version:

10 They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.



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Jeremiah 44:16

American Standard Version:

16 As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of Jehovah, we will not hearken unto thee.


King James Version:

16 As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee.



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Proverbs 15:8

American Standard Version:

8 ¶ The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Jehovah; But the prayer of the upright is his delight.


King James Version:

8 ¶ The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight.



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Psalm 109:7

American Standard Version:

7 When he is judged, let him come forth guilty; And let his prayer {1} be turned into sin. {1) Or become}


King James Version:

7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. {be condemned: Heb. go out guilty, or, wicked}



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1 Corinthians 10:21, 22

American Standard Version:

21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of demons: ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord, and of the table of demons.
22 Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?


King James Version:

21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils.
22 Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?



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1 Corinthians 11:29

American Standard Version:

29 For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, if he {1} discern not the body. {1) Gr discriminate}


King James Version:

29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. {damnation: or, judgment}



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1 Peter 2:8

American Standard Version:

8 and, {1} A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; {2} for they {3} stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. {1) Isa 8:14. 2) Gr who 3) Or stumble, being disobedient to the word}


King James Version:

8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.



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Luke 2:34

American Standard Version:

34 and Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the falling and the rising of many in Israel; and for a sign which is spoken against;


King James Version:

34 And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;



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Romans 11:33

American Standard Version:

33 ¶ O the depth {1} of the riches {2} both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! {1) Or of the riches and the wisdom etc 2) Or both of wisdom etc}


King James Version:

33 ¶ O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!



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Psalm 106:41

American Standard Version:

41 And he gave them into the hand of the nations; And they that hated them ruled over them.


King James Version:

41 And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they that hated them ruled over them.



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Philippians 1:12

American Standard Version:

12 ¶ Now I would have you know, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the progress of the {1} gospel; {1) Gr good tidings; See verse 5}


King James Version:

12 ¶ But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel;



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Job 9:4

American Standard Version:

4 He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: Who hath hardened himself against him, and prospered? --


King James Version:

4 He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath hardened himself against him, and hath prospered?



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Psalm 76:10

American Standard Version:

10 Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: The residue of wrath shalt thou {1} gird upon thee. {1) Or restrain}


King James Version:

10 Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.



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Job 11:12

American Standard Version:

12 {1} But vain man is void of understanding, Yea, man is born as a wild ass's colt. {1) Or But an empty man will get understanding, when a wild ass's colt is born a man.}


King James Version:

12 For vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt. {vain: Heb. empty}



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Psalm 37:8

American Standard Version:

8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: Fret not thyself, it tendeth only to evil-doing.


King James Version:

8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.



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Jonah 4:9

American Standard Version:

9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.


King James Version:

9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. {Doest...: or, Art thou greatly angry?} {I do well...: or, I am greatly angry}



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Romans 8:28

American Standard Version:

28 And we know that to them that love God {1} all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose. {1) Some ancient authorities read God worketh all things with them for good}


King James Version:

28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.



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Psalm 73:1

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ <
> {1} Surely God is good to Israel, Even to such as are pure in heart. {1) Or Only good is God}


King James Version:

1 ¶ <
> Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. {of: or, for} {Truly: or, Yet} {of...: Heb. clean of heart}



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Lamentations 3:15

American Standard Version:

15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath sated me with wormwood.


King James Version:

15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood. {bitterness: Heb. bitternesses}



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1 Corinthians 11:32

American Standard Version:

32 But {1} when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. {1) Or when we are judged of the Lord, we are chastened}


King James Version:

32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.



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1 Thessalonians 5:18

American Standard Version:

18 in everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you-ward.


King James Version:

18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.



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Job 1:21

American Standard Version:

21 and he said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: Jehovah gave, and Jehovah hath taken away; blessed be the name of Jehovah.


King James Version:

21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.



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Revelation 14:2

American Standard Version:

2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and the voice which I heard was as the voice of harpers harping with their harps:


King James Version:

2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:



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1 Corinthians 10:31

American Standard Version:

31 Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.


King James Version:

31 Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.



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John 15:8

American Standard Version:

8 Herein {1} is my Father glorified, {2} that ye bear much fruit; and so shall ye be my disciples. {1) Or was 2) Many ancient authorities read that ye bear much fruit, and be my disciples}


King James Version:

8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.



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1 Corinthians 15:10

American Standard Version:

10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not found {1} vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. {1) Or void}


King James Version:

10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.



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Colossians 1:19

American Standard Version:

19 {1} For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell; {1) Or For the whole fulness of God was pleased to dwell in him}


King James Version:

19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;



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Revelation 22:17

American Standard Version:

17 {1} And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come: he that will, let him take the water of life freely. {1) Or Both}


King James Version:

17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.



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Psalm 48:14

American Standard Version:

14 For this God is our God for ever and ever: He will be our guide even unto death.


King James Version:

14 For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.



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Psalm 48:14

American Standard Version:

14 For this God is our God for ever and ever: He will be our guide even unto death.


King James Version:

14 For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.



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John 14:8

American Standard Version:

8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.


King James Version:

8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.



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Mark 12:30

American Standard Version:

30 and thou shalt love the Lord thy God {1} with all thy heart, and {1} with all thy soul, and {1} with all thy mind, and {1} with all thy strength. {1) Gr from}


King James Version:

30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.



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Ephesians 6:24

American Standard Version:

24 Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ {1} with a love incorruptible. {1) Or in incorruption; See Ro 2:7}


King James Version:

24 Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen. <<To the Ephesians written from Rome, by Tychicus.>> {in sincerity: or, with incorruption}



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Psalm 120:4

American Standard Version:

4 {1} Sharp arrows of the mighty, With coals of {2} juniper. {1) Or, It is as the sharp arrows of the mighty man 2) Or broom}


King James Version:

4 Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper. {Sharp...: or, It is as the sharp arrows of the mighty man, with coals of juniper}



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1 Corinthians 7:30

American Standard Version:

30 and those that weep, as though they wept not; and those that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and those that buy, as though they possessed not;


King James Version:

30 And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not;



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Song of Solomon 2:5

American Standard Version:

5 Stay ye me with {1} raisins, refresh me with apples; For I am sick from love. {1) Heb cakes of raisins}


King James Version:

5 Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love. {comfort...: Heb. straw me with apples}



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Ezra 9:13

American Standard Version:

13 And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great guilt, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hast given us such a remnant,


King James Version:

13 And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance as this; {hast punished...: Heb. hast withheld beneath our iniquities}



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1 Thessalonians 1:3

American Standard Version:

3 remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and {1} patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before {2} our God and Father; {1) Or stedfastness 2) Or God and our Father}


King James Version:

3 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;



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2 Corinthians 5:14

American Standard Version:

14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died;


King James Version:

14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:



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1 Corinthians 13:4

American Standard Version:

4 ¶ Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,


King James Version:

4 ¶ Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, {vaunteth...: or, is not rash}



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2 Samuel 24:24

American Standard Version:

24 And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will verily buy it of thee at a price. Neither will I offer burnt-offerings unto Jehovah my God which cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing-floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.


King James Version:

24 And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.



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2 Corinthians 8:3

American Standard Version:

3 For according to their power, I bear witness, yea and beyond their power, they gave of their own accord,


King James Version:

3 For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves;



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2 Corinthians 11:2

American Standard Version:

2 For I am jealous over you with {1} a godly jealousy: for I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ. {1) Gr a jealousy of God}


King James Version:

2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.



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Song of Solomon 4:12

American Standard Version:

12 A garden {1} shut up is my sister, my bride; A spring shut up, a fountain sealed. {1) Heb barred}


King James Version:

12 A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. {inclosed: Heb. barred} {shut up: Heb. barred}



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Song of Solomon 8:7

American Standard Version:

7 Many waters cannot quench love, Neither can floods drown it: If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, {1} He would utterly be contemned. {1) Or It}


King James Version:

7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.



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Ephesians 3:17

American Standard Version:

17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,


King James Version:

17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,



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Genesis 22:2

American Standard Version:

2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.


King James Version:

2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.



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Luke 14:26

American Standard Version:

26 If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.


King James Version:

26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.



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Deuteronomy 33:9

American Standard Version:

9 Who said of his father, and of his mother, I have not seen him; Neither did he acknowledge his brethren, Nor knew he his own children: For they have observed thy word, And keep thy covenant.


King James Version:

9 Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children: for they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant.



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Hebrews 10:34

American Standard Version:

34 For ye both had compassion on them that were in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions, knowing that {1} ye have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one. {1) Many ancient authorities read ye have your own selves for a better possession etc; Compare Lu 9:25; 21:19}


King James Version:

34 For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. {in yourselves...: or, that ye have in or, for yourselves}



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Isaiah 3:9

American Standard Version:

9 ¶ {1} The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have done evil unto themselves. {1) Or Their respecting of persons doth etc}


King James Version:

9 ¶ The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.



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Psalm 73:9

American Standard Version:

9 They have set their mouth {1} in the heavens, And their tongue walketh through the earth. {1) Or against}


King James Version:

9 They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth.



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1 Corinthians 16:22

American Standard Version:

22 If any man loveth not the Lord, let him be anathema. {1} Maranatha. {1) That is O (or Our) Lord, come!}


King James Version:

22 If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.



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Psalm 139:18

American Standard Version:

18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: When I awake, I am still with thee.


King James Version:

18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.



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Psalm 10:4

American Standard Version:

4 The wicked, in the pride of his countenance, saith, He will not require it. All his thoughts are, There is no God.


King James Version:

4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. {God is...: or, all his thoughts are, There is no God}



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Psalm 84:2

American Standard Version:

2 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of Jehovah; My heart and my flesh {1} cry out unto the living God. {1) Or sing for joy}


King James Version:

2 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.



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Psalm 143:7

American Standard Version:

7 ¶ Make haste to answer me, O Jehovah; My spirit faileth: Hide not thy face from me, Lest I become like them that go down into the pit.


King James Version:

7 ¶ Hear me speedily, O LORD: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit. {lest...: or, for I am become like, etc}



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Job 21:14

American Standard Version:

14 And they say unto God, Depart from us; For we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.


King James Version:

14 Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.



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Acts 4:20

American Standard Version:

20 for we cannot but speak the things which we saw and heard.


King James Version:

20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.



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John 3:2

American Standard Version:

2 the same came unto him by night, and said to him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that thou doest, except God be with him.


King James Version:

2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.



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2 Peter 2:7

American Standard Version:

7 ¶ and delivered righteous Lot, sore distressed by the lascivious life of the wicked


King James Version:

7 ¶ And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:



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Hosea 14:8

American Standard Version:

8 ¶ {1} Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have answered, and will regard him: I am like a green fir-tree; from me is thy fruit found. {1) Or O Ephraim, what etc}


King James Version:

8 ¶ Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found.



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Galatians 6:14

American Standard Version:

14 But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through {1} which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world. {1) Or whom}


King James Version:

14 But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. {by whom: or, whereby}



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1 John 2:15

American Standard Version:

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.


King James Version:

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.



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Amos 2:7

American Standard Version:

7 they that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father go unto the same maiden, to profane my holy name:


King James Version:

7 That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name: {maid: or, young woman}



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Genesis 39:9

American Standard Version:

9 he is not greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back anything from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?


King James Version:

9 There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?



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1 Samuel 4:13

American Standard Version:

13 And when he came, lo, Eli was sitting upon his seat by the wayside watching; for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out.


King James Version:

13 And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching: for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out.



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Psalm 119:103

American Standard Version:

103 ¶ How sweet are thy words unto my {1} taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! {1) Heb palate}


King James Version:

103 ¶ How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! {taste: Heb. palate}



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Isaiah 58:13

American Standard Version:

13 ¶ If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, and the holy of Jehovah honorable; and shalt honor {1} it, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: {1) Or him}


King James Version:

13 ¶ If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:



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Psalm 2:3

American Standard Version:

3 Let us break their bonds asunder, And cast away their cords from us.


King James Version:

3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.



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Matthew 11:29

American Standard Version:

29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.


King James Version:

29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.



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1 John 5:1

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God: and whosoever loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.


King James Version:

1 ¶ Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. {is born: Gr. has been born}



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Galatians 6:17

American Standard Version:

17 Henceforth, let no man trouble me; for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus.


King James Version:

17 From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.



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1 Corinthians 13:5

American Standard Version:

5 doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil;


King James Version:

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;



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John 14:21

American Standard Version:

21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him.


King James Version:

21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.



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Ephesians 4:32

American Standard Version:

32 and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave {1} you. {1) Many ancient authorities read us}


King James Version:

32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.



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Acts 21:13

American Standard Version:

13 Then Paul answered, What do ye, weeping and breaking my heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.


King James Version:

13 Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.



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1 Corinthians 13:7

American Standard Version:

7 {1} beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. {1) Or covereth; Compare 1 Pe 4:8}


King James Version:

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.



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Hebrews 11:35

American Standard Version:

35 Women received their dead by a resurrection: and others were {1} tortured, not accepting {2} their deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: {1) Or beaten to death 2) Gr the redemption}


King James Version:

35 Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:



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2 Timothy 4:8

American Standard Version:

8 henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day; and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved his appearing.


King James Version:

8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.



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Hebrews 9:24

American Standard Version:

24 For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us:


King James Version:

24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:



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1 John 3:2

American Standard Version:

2 Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if {1} he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is. {1) Or it}


King James Version:

2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.



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Revelation 22:17, 20

American Standard Version:

17 {1} And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come: he that will, let him take the water of life freely. {1) Or Both}
20 ¶ He who testifieth these things saith, Yea: I come quickly. Amen: come, Lord Jesus.


King James Version:

17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
20 ¶ He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.



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Psalm 31:23

American Standard Version:

23 Oh love Jehovah, all ye his saints: Jehovah preserveth {1} the faithful, And plentifully rewardeth him that dealeth proudly. {1) Or faithfulness}


King James Version:

23 O love the LORD, all ye his saints: for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.



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Romans 1:30

American Standard Version:

30 backbiters, {1} hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, {1) Or haters of God}


King James Version:

30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,



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1 Chronicles 28:9

American Standard Version:

9 And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for Jehovah searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.


King James Version:

9 And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.



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1 John 4:16

American Standard Version:

16 And we know and have believed the love which God hath {1} in us. God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. {1) Or in our case}


King James Version:

16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.



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Psalm 73:25

American Standard Version:

25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire {1} besides thee. {1) Or with thee}


King James Version:

25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.



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Psalm 119:72

American Standard Version:

72 ¶ The law of thy mouth is better unto me Than thousands of gold and silver.


King James Version:

72 ¶ The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.



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Ezekiel 16:6

American Standard Version:

6 ¶ And when I passed by thee, and saw thee weltering in thy blood, I said unto thee, Though thou art in thy blood, live; yea, I said unto thee, Though thou art in thy blood, live.


King James Version:

6 ¶ And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live. {polluted: or, trodden under foot}



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Song of Solomon 1:4

American Standard Version:

4 Draw me; we will run after thee: The king hath brought me into his chambers; We will be glad and rejoice in thee; We will make mention of thy love more than of wine: {1} Rightly do they love thee. {1) Or In uprightness}


King James Version:

4 Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee. {the upright...: or, they love thee uprightly}



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Psalm 78:34

American Standard Version:

34 When he slew them, then they inquired after him; And they returned and sought God earnestly.


King James Version:

34 When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned and enquired early after God.



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Psalm 78:36, 37

American Standard Version:

36 But they flattered him with their mouth, And lied unto him with their tongue.
37 For their heart was not {1} right with him, Neither were they faithful in his covenant. {1) Or stedfast}


King James Version:

36 Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues.
37 For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant.



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1 John 4:19

American Standard Version:

19 We love, because he first loved us.


King James Version:

19 We love him, because he first loved us.



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Job 20:22

American Standard Version:

22 In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: The hand of every one that is in misery shall come upon him.


King James Version:

22 In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: every hand of the wicked shall come upon him. {wicked: or, troublesome}



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Psalm 17:15

American Standard Version:

15 As for me, {1} I shall behold thy face in righteousness; {1} I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with beholding thy form. {1) Or let me}


King James Version:

15 As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.



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Amos 5:8

American Standard Version:

8 seek him that maketh the Pleiades and Orion, and turneth {1} the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth (Jehovah is his name); {1) Or deep darkness}


King James Version:

8 Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:



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Mark 10:23

American Standard Version:

23 And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!


King James Version:

23 And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!



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John 14:23

American Standard Version:

23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.


King James Version:

23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.



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Matthew 6:26

American Standard Version:

26 Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value then they?


King James Version:

26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?



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John 15:19

American Standard Version:

19 If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.


King James Version:

19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.



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Judges 9:15

American Standard Version:

15 And the {1} bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade; and if not, let fire come out of the {1} bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon. {1) Or thorn}


King James Version:

15 And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.



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1 Samuel 28:15

American Standard Version:

15 ¶ And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do.


King James Version:

15 ¶ And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. {by prophets: Heb. by the hand of prophets}



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Proverbs 8:17

American Standard Version:

17 I love them that love me; And those that seek me {1} diligently shall find me. {1) Or early}


King James Version:

17 I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.



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Ezekiel 16:30

American Standard Version:

30 How weak is thy heart, saith the Lord Jehovah, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an impudent harlot;


King James Version:

30 How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman;



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Psalm 73:26

American Standard Version:

26 My flesh and my heart faileth; But God is the {1} strength of my heart and my portion for ever. {1) Heb rock}


King James Version:

26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. {strength: Heb. rock}



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Matthew 6:12

American Standard Version:

12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.


King James Version:

12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.



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James 1:21

American Standard Version:

21 Wherefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of {1} wickedness, receive with meekness the {2} implanted word, which is able to save your souls. {1) Or malice 2) Or inborn}


King James Version:

21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.



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Zechariah 11:8

American Standard Version:

8 And I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me.


King James Version:

8 Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul lothed them, and their soul also abhorred me. {lothed...: Heb. was straightened for them}



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Proverbs 23:32

American Standard Version:

32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, And stingeth like an adder.


King James Version:

32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. {an...: or, a cockatrice}



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Isaiah 62:5

American Standard Version:

5 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee; and {1} as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. {1) Heb with the joy of the bridegroom}


King James Version:

5 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. {as the...: Heb. with the joy of the bridegroom}



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John 17:26

American Standard Version:

26 and I made known unto them thy name, and will make it known; that the love wherewith thou lovedst me may be in them, and I in them.


King James Version:

26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.



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Hebrews 11:1

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ Now faith is {1} assurance of things hoped for, a {2} conviction of things not seen. {1) Or the giving substance to 2) Or test}


King James Version:

1 ¶ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. {substance: or, ground, or, confidence}



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1 Corinthians 13:8

American Standard Version:

8 ¶ Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.


King James Version:

8 ¶ Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. {fail: Gr. vanish away}



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2 Corinthians 5:7

American Standard Version:

7 (for we walk by faith, not by {1} sight); {1) Gr appearance}


King James Version:

7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)



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2 Peter 3:18

American Standard Version:

18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and {1} for ever. Amen. {1) Gr unto the day of eternity; Sir 18:10}


King James Version:

18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.



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2 Thessalonians 3:5

American Standard Version:

5 And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the {1} patience of Christ. {1) Or stedfastness}


King James Version:

5 And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ. {patient...: or, patience of Christ}



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1 Corinthians 2:9

American Standard Version:

9 but as it is written, {1} Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, And which entered not into the heart of man, Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him. {1) Isa 64:4; 65:17}


King James Version:

9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.



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James 1:12

American Standard Version:

12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to them that love him.


King James Version:

12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.



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2 Thessalonians 2:10, 11

American Standard Version:

10 and with all deceit of unrighteousness for them that {1} perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. {1) Or are perishing}
11 And for this cause God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe a lie:


King James Version:

10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:



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Psalm 63:1

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ <
> O God, thou art my God; earnestly will I seek thee: My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, In a dry and weary land, where no water is.


King James Version:

1 ¶ <
> O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; {thirsty: Heb. weary} {where...: without water}



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Galatians 5:6

American Standard Version:

6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith {1} working through love. {1) Or wrought}


King James Version:

6 For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.



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1 Kings 3:9

American Standard Version:

9 Give thy servant therefore an {1} understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to judge this thy {2} great people? {1) Heb hearing 2) Heb heavy}


King James Version:

9 Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people? {understanding: Heb. hearing}



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1 Kings 3:10

American Standard Version:

10 And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing.


King James Version:

10 And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing.



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Revelation 2:4

American Standard Version:

4 But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.


King James Version:

4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.



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1 Peter 2:3

American Standard Version:

3 if ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious:


King James Version:

3 If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.



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Job 6:6

American Standard Version:

6 Can that which hath no savor be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in {1} the white of an egg? {1) Or the juice of purslain}


King James Version:

6 Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?



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Matthew 5:6

American Standard Version:

6 Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.


King James Version:

6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.



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1 Kings 1:1

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.


King James Version:

1 ¶ Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. {stricken...: Heb. entered into days}



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Matthew 17:27

American Standard Version:

27 But, lest we cause them to stumble, go thou to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a {1} shekel: that take, and give unto them for me and thee. {1) Gr stater}


King James Version:

27 Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee. {a piece...: or, a stater: it is half an ounce of silver, in value two shillings and six pence, sterling; about fifty five cents}



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Philippians 1:9

American Standard Version:

9 ¶ And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment;


King James Version:

9 ¶ And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; {judgment: or, sense}



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John 21:16

American Standard Version:

16 He saith to him again a second time, Simon, son of {1} John, {2} lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I {3} love thee. He saith unto him, Tend my sheep. {1) Gr Joanes; See Joh 1:42 margin 2) 3) Love in these places represents two different Greek words}


King James Version:

16 He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.



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Philippians 3:8

American Standard Version:

8 Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ,


King James Version:

8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,



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Romans 9:3

American Standard Version:

3 For I could {1} wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh: {1) Or pray}


King James Version:

3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: {accursed: or, separated}



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2 Corinthians 12:4

American Standard Version:

4 how that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.


King James Version:

4 How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. {lawful: or, possible}



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Romans 8:30

American Standard Version:

30 and whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.


King James Version:

30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.



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Matthew 20:16

American Standard Version:

16 So the last shall be first, and the first last.


King James Version:

16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.



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Acts 16:14

American Standard Version:

14 And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, one that worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened to give heed unto the things which were spoken by Paul.


King James Version:

14 And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.



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Ephesians 5:8

American Standard Version:

8 For ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord: walk as children of light


King James Version:

8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:



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1 Peter 5:4

American Standard Version:

4 And when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested, ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away.


King James Version:

4 And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.



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Romans 5:6

American Standard Version:

6 ¶ For while we were yet weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly.


King James Version:

6 ¶ For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. {in due time: or, according to the time}



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Acts 7:51

American Standard Version:

51 ¶ Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye.


King James Version:

51 ¶ Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.



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John 3:36

American Standard Version:

36 He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that {1} obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. {1) Or believeth not}


King James Version:

36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.



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Hebrews 12:2

American Standard Version:

2 looking unto Jesus the {1} author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. {1) Or captain}


King James Version:

2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. {author: or, beginner}



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Hebrews 12:25

American Standard Version:

25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:


King James Version:

25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not when they refused him that warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape who turn away from him {1} that warneth from heaven: {1) Or that is from heaven}



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Acts 10:44

American Standard Version:

44 ¶ While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word.


King James Version:

44 ¶ While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.



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Revelation 3:7

American Standard Version:

7 ¶ And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and none shall shut, and that shutteth and none openeth:


King James Version:

7 ¶ And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;



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Psalm 110:3

American Standard Version:

3 Thy people {1} offer themselves willingly In the day of thy {2} power, {3} in holy array: Out of the womb of the morning {4} Thou hast the dew of thy youth. {1) Heb are freewill-offerings 2) Or army 3) Or in the beauty of holiness 4) Or Thy youth are to thee as the dew}


King James Version:

3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. {from...: or, more than the womb of the morning: thou shalt have, etc}



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2 Timothy 1:9

American Standard Version:

9 who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus {1} before times eternal, {1) Or long ages ago}


King James Version:

9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,



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Isaiah 63:18

American Standard Version:

18 Thy holy people possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.


King James Version:

18 The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.



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1 Thessalonians 4:7

American Standard Version:

7 For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification.


King James Version:

7 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.



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Acts 26:19

American Standard Version:

19 Wherefore, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision:


King James Version:

19 Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision:



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Romans 9:19

American Standard Version:

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he still find fault? For who withstandeth his will?


King James Version:

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?



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Psalm 107:16

American Standard Version:

16 For he hath broken the gates of brass, And cut the bars of iron in sunder.


King James Version:

16 For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.



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Psalm 114:5

American Standard Version:

5 What aileth thee, O thou sea, that thou fleest? Thou Jordan, that thou turnest back?


King James Version:

5 What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?



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Acts 16:30

American Standard Version:

30 and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?


King James Version:

30 And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?



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Philippians 3:14

American Standard Version:

14 I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the {1} high calling of God in Christ Jesus. {1) Or upward}


King James Version:

14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.



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1 John 1:3

American Standard Version:

3 that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ:


King James Version:

3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.



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James 2:5

American Standard Version:

5 Hearken, my beloved brethren; did not God choose them that are poor as to the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to them that love him?


King James Version:

5 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? {of the: or, of that}



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James 2:5

American Standard Version:

5 Hearken, my beloved brethren; did not God choose them that are poor as to the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to them that love him?


King James Version:

5 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? {of the: or, of that}



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1 Corinthians 1:26

American Standard Version:

26 For {1} behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: {1) Or ye behold}


King James Version:

26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:



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Matthew 11:26

American Standard Version:

26 yea, Father, {1} for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight. {1) Or that}


King James Version:

26 Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.



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1 Peter 5:10

American Standard Version:

10 ¶ And the God of all grace, who called you unto his eternal glory in Christ, after that ye have suffered a little while, shall himself {1} perfect, establish, strengthen {2} you. {1) Or restore 2) Many ancient authorities add settle}


King James Version:

10 ¶ But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.



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2 Peter 1:3

American Standard Version:

3 seeing that his divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that called us {1} by his own glory and virtue; {1) Some ancient authorities read through glory and virtue}


King James Version:

3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: {to: or, by}



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Matthew 22:14

American Standard Version:

14 For many are called, but few chosen.


King James Version:

14 For many are called, but few are chosen.



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Revelation 3:4

American Standard Version:

4 But thou hast a few names in Sardis that did not defile their garments: and they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy.


King James Version:

4 Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy.



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Daniel 3:7

American Standard Version:

7 Therefore at that time, when all the peoples heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of music, all the peoples, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.


King James Version:

7 Therefore at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of musick, all the people, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.



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Romans 11:29

American Standard Version:

29 For the gifts and the calling of God are not repented of.


King James Version:

29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.



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Judges 16:20

American Standard Version:

20 And she said, The Philistines are upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free. But he knew not that Jehovah was departed from him.


King James Version:

20 And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him.



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Psalm 110:2

American Standard Version:

2 The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.


King James Version:

2 Jehovah will {1} send forth the {2} rod of thy strength out of Zion: Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. {1) Or stretch 2) Or sceptre}



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Ephesians 1:12

American Standard Version:

12 to the end that we should be unto the praise of his glory, we who {1} had before hoped in Christ: {1) Or have}


King James Version:

12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. {trusted: or, hoped}



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Colossians 1:12

American Standard Version:

12 ¶ giving thanks unto the Father, who made {1} us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; {1) Some ancient authorities read you}


King James Version:

12 ¶ Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:



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Revelation 20:6

American Standard Version:

6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: over these the second death hath no {1} power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him {2} a thousand years. {1) Or authority 2) Some ancient authorities read the}


King James Version:

6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.



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Colossians 3:10

American Standard Version:

10 and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him:


King James Version:

10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:



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Acts 8:23

American Standard Version:

23 For I see that thou {1} art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. {1) Or wilt become gall (or a gall root) of bitterness and a bond of iniquity; Compare De 29:18; Heb 12:15}


King James Version:

23 For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.



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2 Peter 1:10

American Standard Version:

10 Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never stumble:


King James Version:

10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:



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Jeremiah 7:4

American Standard Version:

4 Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, are these.


King James Version:

4 Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.



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Ephesians 2:12

American Standard Version:

12 that ye were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.


King James Version:

12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:



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Colossians 1:21

American Standard Version:

21 And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works,


King James Version:

21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled {in...: or, by your mind in}



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Luke 19:27

American Standard Version:

27 But these mine enemies, that would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.


King James Version:

27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.



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Philippians 3:9

American Standard Version:

9 ¶ and be found in him, {1} not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God {2} by faith: {1) Or not having as my righteousness that which is of the law 2) Gr upon}


King James Version:

9 ¶ And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:



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Acts 9:21

American Standard Version:

21 And all that heard him were amazed, and said, Is not this he that in Jerusalem made havoc of them that called on this name? and he had come hither for this intent, that he might bring them bound before the chief priests.


King James Version:

21 But all that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests?



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1 Corinthians 6:11

American Standard Version:

11 And such were some of you: but ye {1} were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God. {1) Gr washed yourselves}


King James Version:

11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.



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John 9:25

American Standard Version:

25 He therefore answered, Whether he is a sinner, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.


King James Version:

25 He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.



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1 Peter 2:9

American Standard Version:

9 But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:


King James Version:

9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light: {peculiar: or, purchased} {praises: or, virtues}



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2 Corinthians 4:6

American Standard Version:

6 Seeing it is God, that said, {1} Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the {2} light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. {1) Ge 1:3. 2) Gr illumination}


King James Version:

6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. {hath: Gr. is he who hath}



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Ephesians 2:1

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ And you did he make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins,


King James Version:

1 ¶ And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;



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John 8:12

American Standard Version:

12 ¶ Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.


King James Version:

12 ¶ Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.



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Romans 7:18

American Standard Version:

18 For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me, but to {1} do that which is good is not. {1) Gr work}


King James Version:

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.



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Hebrews 2:10

American Standard Version:

10 ¶ For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, {1} in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the {2} author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. {1) Or having brought 2) Or captain}


King James Version:

10 ¶ For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.



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Hebrews 3:1

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus;


King James Version:

1 ¶ Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;



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Psalm 145:1, 2

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ <<A Psalm of praise; of David.>> I will extol thee, my God, O King; And I will bless thy name for ever and ever.
2 Every day will I bless thee; And I will praise thy name for ever and ever.


King James Version:

1 ¶ <Psalm of praise.>> I will extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever.
2 Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever.



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Acts 26:18

American Standard Version:

18 to open their eyes, {1} that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me. {1) Or to turn them}


King James Version:

18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.



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Luke 15:17

American Standard Version:

17 But when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger!


King James Version:

17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!



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Ephesians 4:1

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called,


King James Version:

1 ¶ I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, {of the Lord: or, in the Lord}



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Galatians 6:16

American Standard Version:

16 And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.


King James Version:

16 And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.



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Genesis 7:1

American Standard Version:

1 ¶ And Jehovah said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.


King James Version:

1 ¶ And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.



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Exodus 23:2

American Standard Version:

2 Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou {1} speak in a cause to turn aside after a multitude to wrest justice: {1) Or bear witness}


King James Version:

2 Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment: {speak: Heb. answer}



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Philippians 4:4

American Standard Version:

4 Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, Rejoice.


King James Version:

4 Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.



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Luke 15:24

American Standard Version:

24 for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.


King James Version:

24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.



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Ecclesiastes 2:14

American Standard Version:

14 The wise man's eyes are in his head, and the fool walketh in darkness: and yet I perceived that one event happeneth to them all.


King James Version:

14 The wise man's eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all.



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1 Peter 3:8

American Standard Version:

8 ¶ Finally, be ye all likeminded, {1} compassionate, loving as brethren, tenderhearted, humbleminded: {1) Gr sympathetic}


King James Version:

8 ¶ Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: {love as: or, loving to the}



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Genesis 23:7

American Standard Version:

7 And Abraham rose up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth.


King James Version:

7 And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth.



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1 Corinthians 9:22

American Standard Version:

22 To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak: I am become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some.


King James Version:

22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.



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1 Peter 2:25

American Standard Version:

25 For ye were going astray like sheep; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and {1} Bishop of your souls. {1) Or Overseer}


King James Version:

25 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.



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Hebrews 13:16

American Standard Version:

16 But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.


King James Version:

16 But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.



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Ephesians 1:11

American Standard Version:

11 in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will;


King James Version:

11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:



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Romans 9:16

American Standard Version:

16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy.


King James Version:

16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.



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Ephesians 1:4

American Standard Version:

4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before {1} him in love: {1) Or him: having in love foreordained us}


King James Version:

4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:



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2 Thessalonians 2:13

American Standard Version:

13 ¶ But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, for that God chose you {1} from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and {2} belief of the truth: {1) Many ancient authorities read as firstfruits 2) Or faith}


King James Version:

13 ¶ But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:



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2 Timothy 2:19

American Standard Version:

19 ¶ Howbeit the firm foundation of God standeth, having this seal, {1} The Lord knoweth them that are his: and, {2} Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness. {1) Nu 16:5? 2) Isa 26:13?}


King James Version:

19 ¶ Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. {sure: or, steady}



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Ruth 1:16, 17

American Standard Version:

16 And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God;
17 where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: Jehovah do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.


King James Version:

16 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: {Intreat...: or, Be not against me}
17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.



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Acts 4:35

American Standard Version:

35 and laid them at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto each, according as any one had need.


King James Version:

35 And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.



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Psalm 23:4

American Standard Version:

4 Yea, thou I walk through the valley of {1} the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. {1) Or deep darkness (and so elsewhere)}


King James Version:

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.



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John 6:44

American Standard Version:

44 No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day.


King James Version:

44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.



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Luke 15:13-18

American Standard Version:

13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,


King James Version:

13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country; and there he wasted his substance with riotous living.
14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that country; and he began to be in want.
15 And he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
16 And he would fain {1} have filled his belly with {2} the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. {1) Many ancient authorities read have been filled 2) Gr the pods of the carob tree}
17 But when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger!
18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight:



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Acts 9:8-9

American Standard Version:

8 And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.
9 And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.


King James Version:

8 And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing; and they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.
9 And he was three days without sight, and did neither eat nor drink.



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Ursin


A German Reformer of the 16th Century



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Augustine


The greatest of the early fathers, famous for his Confessions (autobiographical). He died in 430 A.D.



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satisfactory

To make satisfaction for (pay the price of) sin.



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castigatory


By way of chastisement.



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timpani

A tumour, as swelling.



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puissance

Power, might.



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Hooper

John Bradford, and John Hooper (Bishop of Gloucester), were martyred during the reign of Queen Mary Tudor.



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Themistocles

An Athenian statesman who defeated the Persians in the famous naval battle of Salamis in 480 B.C. Later he fell into disfavour and fled from his native land.



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Seneca

A noted Roman (Stoic) philosopher and writer, particularly prominent during the reign of the Emperor Nero (d.65 A.D.).



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Constantine

The first of the Roman Emperors to profess Christianity (d.377 A.D.).



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Alexander

King of Macedonia and conqueror of the Persian Empire (d.323 B.C.). Hephestion was so like Alexander in features and stature that he was often saluted by the name of Alexander.



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the vestal virgins

Priestesses at the temple of Vesta (goddess of the hearth) in pagan Rome.



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Bernard

Bernard of Clairvaux (d.1153 A.D.). Hymns attributed to him are: 'Jesus, the very thought of Thee', and 'Jesus Thou joy of loving hearts'.



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Plutarch

A Greek author who wrote biographies of Greek and Roman notables (d.120 A.D.).



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Ignatius

Bishop of Antioch in the early Second Century. He was sent to Rome for martyrdom.



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Chrysostom

Bishop of Constantinople in the early 4th Century. Many of his sermons and letters survive.



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Julian

A Roman Emperor of the 4th Century who professed Christianity but later apostatised and endeavoured to restore the pagan religions.



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Tertullian

A Christian theologian who, during the 2nd and early 3rd Century, gives us 'a priceless mirror of early African Christianity' (he was born at or near Carthage in the Roman Province of Africa).



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Basil

A theologian and teacher of the 4th Century who became Bishop of Caesarea (in Cappadocia): known as Basil the Great.



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Aristotle

A Greek philosopher of the 4th Century B.C., famous for his writings on ethics, politics, logic, and science.



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Damascen

A writer of the 4th Century A.D. who strove hard against heretics and heresy.



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Quintus Curtius

A writer of the 1st Century A.D. and biographer of Alexander the Great.



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Pliny

A Roman writer on 'Natural History'. He died during the famous eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79.



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Theodosius

Roman Emperor (surnamed 'the Great') in the late 4th Century. He is famous for his encounter with Bishop Ambrose of Milan (390 A.D.).



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Salvian

A writer of the 5th Century, who used History as an incentive for Christians to live righteously and to believe in the Providence of God.



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Melanchthon

The famous colleague of Martin Luther during the days of the Reformation in Germany.



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Athanasius

Bishop of Alexandria in the 4th Century. A famous Creed in named after him.



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Causinus

A French writer of the 17th Century whose Works were often reprinted.



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cast at the bar

Convicted in a court of law.



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Peter Martyr

The English form of the name of Pietro Martire Vermigli, an Italian Reformer who gave help to Reformers in England in the middle of the 16th Century.



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Anselm

Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of William Rufus and Henry I. He wrote a famous treatise on the Atonement.



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Bellarmine

A Roman Catholic Cardinal and theologian (d.1621) whose writings set forth the teachings of the Council of Trent.



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imposthume

Abcess.



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quicksilver

Mercury.



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Scripture references are no longer abbreviated or italicized

This was done to make the book easier to hear in the event it is read by a text-reader program, which may not understand for example that “Psa.” should be pronounced “salms”.



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ASV and KJV

The American Standard Version comes first, in this location,

followed by,

The King James Version in this location.

Both of these are public domain and reflects a personal preference for the ASV, considered by some to be a superior translation.



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“Lord” changed to “LORD”

This restores the pattern of the KJV and indicates that the proper name of God - “Yah/Yahweh/Jehovah” - is in the underlying Old Testament Hebrew text.



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Old English Modernized

For example, changing “favour” to “favor.” This was done because the initial scan was into a Microsoft Word document which kept flagging the old English spellings as mistakes.



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Word version

A Microsoft Word 7.0 version of this book is available: email pkb15@eternallifeministries.org



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Please report errors

If you find spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, Scripture reference mistakes, or any other sort of problem please describe (or if possible copy/paste) in an email to: pkb15@eternallifeministries.org



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Other Books Available

The Mystery of Providence by John Flavel,
The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes,

are also available in both formats. God willing, other Puritan Paperbacks will be added as time allows.



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Footnotes are now under links, not in the main text.

Because each chapter is now one long page; plus it makes getting to footnotes quite easy.



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Banner of Truth permission

From : Jack

To : pkb15@eternallifeministries.org

Subject : Mystery Of Providence - Bruised Reed

Date : Tue, 25 Jun 2002 09:00:56 -0400

Brian,
Thanks for your email regarding Mystery of Providence. Of course we are thrilled that you have such an interest in our books and are thankful that you would be interested in putting them in electronic format, You are correct, there is not a copyright on either of the books you mentioned and you are free to scan them and use them however you feel would best benefit the kingdom. We would ask, if you are willing, that you would supply us with copies of what you scan, in each format that it is available. You are under no obligation to do this but it would be helpful to us.

Thanks again for your willingness to run this by us and I hope you will consider our request.

Jack Smith
Manager
Banner of Truth



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Damascen


A writer of the4th Century A.D. who strove hard against heretics and heresy.



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Electronic Version Notes
Back to Table of Contents

This excellent work by Thomas Watson is public domain and may be distributed freely. It was scanned from the Banner of Truth’s Puritan Paperback series (reprinted edition of 1998). There is no copyright warning in the book, and The Banner of Truth Trust has encouraged this sort of endeavor. No changes have been made except as follows:

1) Scripture references are no longer abbreviated;
2) Clicking on a Scripture link takes you to two versions of the Holy Bible.
3) Footnotes are under links.
4) Where appropriate, “Lord” was changed to “LORD.”
5) Some old English spellings have been modified to their modern equivalents.

Microsoft Word version.
To report errors.
Other books.

Brian Daniel
July 2002.


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